Kitabı oku: «The Home Life of Poe», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XXI
AT FORDHAM

It was at this time, in the summer of 1845, that Poe's sister, Miss Rosalie Poe, went on a visit to her brother, whom she had not seen in ten years. On her return home, and for years thereafter, she was accustomed to speak of this visit; and it was a curious picture which she gave of the life of the poet and his family in the humble little cottage on Fordham Hill.

Poe was away when she arrived—presumably in his insane pursuit of Mrs. Osgood. Miss Poe told of "Aunt Clemm's" distress and anxiety on his account, and of how she "scraped together every penny" and borrowed money from herself to send to Edgar, who, she said, had been taken ill while on a business trip. There were no provisions in the house scarcely, and she herself, both then and at various other times, would purchase supplies from the market and grocers' wagons which passed; for there were no stores at the little country station of Fordham.

Miss Poe told of her brother's arrival at home, and of how she overheard Mrs. Clemm administering to him a severe "scolding." He was so ill that he had to be put to bed by Mrs. Clemm, who sat up with him all night while he "talked out of his head" and begged for morphine. After some days he was better, and walked about the house and sat under the pine trees crowning a rocky knoll within calling distance of the house—ever a constant and favorite retreat of his, affording fine views of the river and neighboring country.

One day, still weak and ill, he sat at his desk and looked over his papers. Mrs. Clemm then took his place, and wrote at his dictation. Aunt Clemm, said Rosalie, could exactly imitate Edgar's writing. On the following day she filled her satchel with some of these papers and went to the city, whence she returned late in the evening, quite after dark, with a hamper of provisions and medicines to Virginia's great delight, who had feared some mishap to her mother and cried accordingly. Miss Poe believed that this hamper was a present from some one, but Aunt Clemm was very reserved toward her in regard to her affairs. She knew, she said, that Mrs. Clemm had never liked her, but Edgar and Virginia were kind.

From this time Poe wrote industriously, seldom going to town, but sending his mother-in-law instead. Several times Mrs. Clemm gave her niece some "copying" to do, but this was not to her a very gratifying task, and when, on her return home, she was asked what it was about, had not the least idea! She always insisted that Anabel Lee was written at this time, as she repeatedly heard Edgar read it to Mrs. Clemm and also to himself, and recognized it when it was published two years afterward. A curious picture was that which she gave of the poet's reading his manuscript to his mother-in-law while the latter sat beside his desk inking the worn seams of his and her own garments; or of Poe, seated on a "settle" outside the kitchen door, also reading to her some of his "rare and radiant fancies," while she presided over the family laundry. He seems to have been constantly appealing to her sympathy with his writing, but never to Virginia.

According to Miss Poe, Mrs. Clemm was at this time dependent for her own earnings on her sewing and fancy knitting, with pretty knick-knacks, which she disposed of at a certain "notion store." Virginia, too, when well enough, liked this kind of work. They had few visitors, for Mrs. Clemm, too busy for gossip, made a point of discouraging calls from the neighbors, with the exception of two or three families of better class than most of those surrounding them. These latter were a half-rural people, keeping dairies and cultivating market gardens.

Miss Poe spoke of Virginia's cheerfulness. Nothing ever disturbed her. "She was always laughing." She liked to have children about her; and they came every day, bringing their dolls and playthings, with little offerings of fruit and flowers from their home gardens. She taught them to cut out and make their dolls' dresses, and would sometimes be very merry with them. She did not appear to suffer, said Miss Poe—did not lose flesh, and had always a hearty appetite, eating what the others ate, though very fond of nice things, especially candy. Her mother and Edgar petted her like a baby. "Aunt Clemm and Virginia," declared Miss Poe with conviction, "cared for nobody but themselves and Edgar." Virginia was at this time twenty-four years of age.

It was not to be wondered at that, as Miss Poe said, her brother, immediately after his return, remained at home, seldom going into town, but sending his mother to dispose of his manuscripts. It has been said that when he did make his appearance in the city and among his usual business haunts, he found himself everywhere coldly received, in consequence of the notorious episode with Mrs. Osgood, for whom it was known he had left his sick wife. His literary enemies, of whom he had made many by his keen criticisms, made the most of this charge against him, in addition to that of dissipated habits, to which he now gave himself up with a recklessness which he had never before shown.

Poe afterward attempted to defend himself against this reproach and the whole scandal of this season by attributing its excesses to his grief and anxiety on account of his wife, whom, he says, he "loved as man never loved before," a phrase the extravagance of which betrays its insincerity. He describes how through the years of her illness he "loved her more and more dearly and clung to her with the most desperate pertinacity, until he became insane, with intervals of horrible sanity.... During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank." And thus he endeavors to explain away his pursuit of Mrs. Osgood!

It cannot but be noted that in all Poe's accounts of himself, and especially of his feelings, is a palpable affectation and exaggeration, with an extravagance of expression bordering on the tragic and melo-dramatic; a style which is exemplified in some of his writings, and may be equally imaginative in both cases.

Mrs. Osgood also, in her "Reminiscences," after Poe's death, sought to clear both him and herself from the scandal of that summer by writing of the affection and confidence existing between himself and his wife—"his idolized Virginia"—as she saw them in their home, and declares her belief that his wife was the only woman whom he had ever really loved. In this we do not feel disposed to question her sincerity. Touching the slander against herself, she wrote to a friend:

"You have proof in Mrs. Poe's letters to me and Poe's to Mrs. Ellet, either of which would fully establish my innocence.... Neither of them, as you know, were persons likely to take much trouble to prove a woman's innocence, and it was only because she felt that I had been cruelly wronged by her mother and Mrs. Ellet that she impulsively rendered me this justice."

Of course, the letter of Mrs. Poe here referred to was written at the suggestion of her husband, but it is curious to observe how frankly and naively Mrs. Osgood—not now writing for the public—expresses her real opinion of Poe and his wife.

Mrs. Osgood goes on to say: "Oh, it is too cruel that I, the only one of all those women who did not seek his acquaintance, should be sought out after his death as the only victim to suffer from the slanders of his mother."

From this it would appear that after Poe's death the old scandal was revived, and by Mrs. Clemm herself. About this time she was having frequent interviews with Dr. Griswold in regard to Poe's papers, which she had handed over to him for use in the Memoirs upon which he was engaged. Naturally, Mrs. Clemm, who seems never to have forgiven Mrs. Osgood for the troubles of that unfortunate first summer at Fordham, would express herself freely to Griswold, who was a warm friend and admirer of Mrs. Osgood. Was it on account of such utterances that Griswold wrote to Mrs. Whitman:

"Be very careful what you say to Mrs. Clemm. She is not your friend or anybody's friend, and has no element of goodness or kindness in her nature, but whose heart is full of wickedness and malice."

Mrs. Osgood was a lovely and estimable woman, and if she did allow her admiration of Poe and her warm-hearted sympathy with one of a kindred poetic nature to impulsively carry her beyond the bounds of a strictly platonic friendship, it was in all innocence on her part, and did not lose her the good opinion of those who knew her. The blame was all for Poe and the feeling against him intense.

Undoubtedly the impression which she made on Poe was something beyond what he ordinarily experienced toward women. In my own acquaintance with him he several times spoke of her, and always with a sort of grave and reverential tenderness—as one may speak of the dead, or as he might have spoken of the lost friend of his boyhood, Mrs. Stanard. Although, as Mrs. Osgood says, Poe and herself never met in the few remaining years of their lives, yet several of his poems, without any real attempt at disguise, express his remembrance of her. It was to her that the lines "To F–" were addressed, after their parting:

 
"Beloved, amid the earnest woes
That crowd around my earthly path—
(Dear path, alas! where grows
Not e'en one thornless rose)—
My soul at last a solace hath
In dreams of thee—and therein knows
An Eden of calm repose.
 
 
"And thus thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea;
Some ocean throbbing far and free
With storms—but where meanwhile
Serenest skies continually
Just o'er that one bright island smile."
 

In "A Dream" he thus again alludes to her:

 
"That holy dream, that holy dream,
When all the world was chiding,
Hath cheered me like a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
 
 
"What though that light through storm and night
Still trembles from afar?
What could there be more purely bright
Than truth's day-star?"
 

About the same time he wrote the lines, "To My Mother," the only one of his poems in which he alluded to his wife, concluding with the couplet:

 
"By that infinitude which made my wife
Dearer unto my soul than its own life."
 

It will be observed that the sentimental things, in both prose and verse, which Poe has written concerning his love for his wife—and they are but two or three at most—were written immediately after his affair with Mrs. Osgood and the universal charge against him that he had deserted a dying wife for her sake. It is impossible that at this remote period of time it could be understood how seriously—from all contemporaneous accounts—Poe's reputation was affected by this unfortunate episode; especially at the North, where it was best known.

When Miss Poe left Fordham, in July, she carried with her a letter from Mrs. Clemm to Mr. John Mackenzie, soliciting pecuniary aid for Edgar on plea of his wretched health. Mr. Mackenzie was at this time married and with a family of his own, but he never lost his interest in his old friend or ceased to assist him so far as was in his power.

CHAPTER XXII
THE SHADOW AT THE DOOR

During the winter and succeeding summer matters did not improve at the cottage. Poe, with health completely shattered and spirits horribly depressed, remained at home with his sick wife for the most part, only occasionally arousing himself to write. A lady, who was at this time a little girl and one of Virginia's visitors, afterward told a reporter of how she would sometimes see Mr. Poe writing at his table in the upstairs room, and how as each sheet was finished he would paste it on to the last one, until it was long enough to reach across the floor. Then she would venture to roll it up for him in a neat cylinder, taking care not to disturb him. Sometimes, when he was not employed, he would tell the children blood-curdling stories of ghouls and goblins, when his eyes would light up in a wonderful manner. "I lost my heart to those beautiful eyes," she said.

Mrs. Clemm continued to make the rounds of the editors' offices with these manuscripts, but met with little success. Poe's mind was not at its brightest. He was not in a writing mood; and, as has been since observed, he was reduced to the expedient of rewriting and altering certain smaller articles and offering them to the more obscure papers and journals. Mrs. Clemm, in the midst of her manifold duties, could do but little with her sewing in the way of support for the family. So her furniture went, piece by piece, the furniture which Miss Poe had so often described—the parlor box-lounge upon which she slept; the dining-table, which stood in the midst of the room, ready for the meal which was so seldom placed upon it; the large engraving above the mantelpiece, and the collection of sea-shells—all disappeared, until the once cosey little apartment presented a bare and poverty-stricken appearance. Mrs. Gove, one of the literary women of the day, described it as being furnished with only a checked matting, a small corner-stand, a hanging-shelf of books and four chairs.

Years afterward, when strangers would visit the cottage at Fordham, they would hear from the neighbors pathetic accounts of the family during this summer of 1846.

"We knew that they were poor," said one, "but they tried to keep it to themselves. Many a time I have wanted to send them things from my garden, but was afraid to do so."

One old dame said to a New York reporter: "I've known when they were out of provisions, for then Mrs. Clemm, who always seemed cheerful, would come out with a basket and a shining case-knife and go 'round digging greens (dandelions). Once I said to her, says I, 'Greens may be took too frequent.' 'Oh, no,' says she, smiling, 'they cool the blood, and Eddie likes them.'"

Thus poor Mrs. Clemm, with her assumed cheerfulness, would seek to produce the impression that their dinner of wild herbs was a matter of choice instead of necessity.

Another neighbor said to a visitor: "I never saw checked matting last as theirs did. There was nothing upstairs but an old cot in a little hall-room or closet, where Mrs. Clemm slept, and an old table and chair and bed in the next room, where Mr. Poe wrote. But you could eat your dinner off the two floors."

The testimony of still another was: "In the kitchen she had only a little stove, a pine table and a chair; but the floor was as white as the table, and the tins as bright as silver. I don't think that she had more than a dozen pieces of crockery, all on a little shelf in the kitchen. The only meat I've ever known them to have was a five-cent bone for soup or a few butcher's trimmings for a stew; but it seemed Mrs. Clemm could make a little of anything go twice as far as other people could."

In the early part of this summer Virginia's health appeared better than usual. A neighbor who lived nearest them said to a visitor to Poe's old home: "In fine weather that summer—the summer before she died—we could sometimes see her sitting at her front door, wrapped up, with her husband or mother beside her, Mr. Poe reading a paper and Mrs. Clemm knitting. Most times there would be one or two children along, and Mr. Poe would play ball with them while his wife laughingly looked on. She looked like a child herself, hardly taller than they were. Well—no; she wasn't exactly pretty. She looked too spooky, with her white face and big, black eyes; but she was interesting looking, and we felt sorry for her—and for them all, for that matter. You could see they had known better days."

As the summer wore on, and the first autumn breezes shook the leaves from the cherry tree, a change came over Virginia. Mrs. Clemm wrote to Miss Poe that unless she could go to her relations at the South—a thing not to be thought of—she would not live through the winter. Eddie's health was completely broken, and unless she herself remained strong enough to take care of them both, all would have to go to the poor-house. These letters were generally indirect appeals for pecuniary aid. Through similar pathetic accounts given by Mrs. Clemm to editors to whom she offered manuscripts, the condition of the poet and his family became known and was commented upon by the public papers, to Poe's great indignation, who took occasion in an anonymous communication to deny its truth. But that it was no time for pride to stand in the way of dire necessity is evident from the account of Mrs. Gove on her first visit to the cottage late in that fall. One can hardly realize a condition of things such as she described—the bare and fireless room, the bed with its thin, white covering and the military cloak—a relic of the West Point days—spread over it, and the sick woman, "whose only means of warmth was as her husband held her hands and her mother her feet, while she herself hugged a large tortoise-shell cat to her bosom." And the thin, haggard man, suffering like his wife from cold and the lack of nourishing food, but who yet received his visitor with such courtly elegance of manner, was the author of The Raven, with which the world was even then being thrilled!

It was a blessed day for the distressed family that on which, about the last of October, Mrs. Shew came to the now bleak little cottage on the hill and, like a ministering angel, devoted herself to caring for and comforting them—not only as regarded their material wants but with kind and encouraging words as well. With a sufficient competence and the medical education given her by her father, she was enabled thus to devote herself to the service of those who could not afford the attendance of a regular physician.

Not only did she supply them with medicine, but with careful nursing and proper food prepared by her own hands in Mrs. Clemm's little kitchen. Mrs. Gove collected sixty dollars, with which their other wants were supplied; so that during the months of November and December the family were more comfortably situated than was usual with them. But meantime Virginia rapidly declined, until it became evident that her frail life was very near its close.

On the day before her death Poe, in mortal dread of that awful shadow which had been so long in its approach and now stood upon their threshold, wrote urgently to Mrs. Shew to come and pass the night with them. "My poor Virginia still lives, though failing fast." She came, in time to take leave of the dying wife.

One of Poe's biographers⁷ has stated that on the day previous to Mrs. Poe's death she requested Mrs. Shew to read two letters from the second Mrs. Allen exonerating Poe from having ever caused a difficulty in her house. To those who knew Mrs. Allan and had heard from herself and her family the frequent accounts of that occurrence—accounts never retracted by her to her dying day—this statement is not worth a moment's consideration. The only question is, Who wrote those letters, and how is it that they were never made public or again heard of? And who could have imposed upon the dying woman a task such as this, instead of themselves taking the responsibility?

From this incident, if the account be true, it would appear that Virginia was gentle, obedient and submissive to the last. On the day following—January 3, 1847—her innocent, childlike spirit passed away from earth.

She was in the twenty-sixth year of her age.

CHAPTER XXIII
MRS. SHEW

With the death of his wife a great horror and gloom fell upon Poe. The blow which he had for years dreaded had at length fallen. That which he had feared and loathed above all things—the monster, Death—had entered his home and made it desolate. As a poet, he could delight in writing about the death of the young and lovely, but from the dread reality he shrank with an almost superstitious horror and loathing. It was said, on Mrs. Clemm's authority, that he refused to look upon the face of his dead wife. He desired to have no remembrance of the features touched by the transforming fingers of death.

Mrs. Shew still kindly ministered to him, endeavoring also to arouse him from his gloom and encourage him to renewed effort. But it seemed at first useless. He had no hope or cheering beyond the grave, and it was at this time that he might appropriately have written:

 
"A voice from out of the future cries
'On! on!' but o'er the past—
Dim gulf—my spirit hovering lies,
Mute, motionless, aghast."
 

Mrs. Shew, a thoroughly practical woman of sound, good sense and judgment, and with so little of the æsthetic that she confessed to Poe that she had never read his poems, nevertheless took a friendly interest in him and felt for him in his loneliness. To afford him the benefit of a change, she took him as her patient to her own home and commissioned him to furnish her dining-room and library according to his own taste. She also encouraged him to write, placing pen and paper before him and bidding him to try; and in this way, it is claimed by one account, "The Bells" came to be written, or at least begun. Under the influence of cheerful society, comfort and good cheer, Poe's health and spirits improved, and on his return home he again commenced writing. Soon, however, a relapse occurred, and his kind friend and physician found it necessary to resume her visits to Fordham. For all this Poe was grateful, but, unfortunately, he was more; and at length on a certain day he so far betrayed his feelings that Mrs. Shew then and there informed him that her visits to him must cease. On the day following she wrote a farewell letter, in which she gave him advice and directions in regard to his health, warning him of its precarious state, and of the necessity of his abandoning the habits which were making a wreck of him mentally and physically. She advised him as the only thing that could save him to marry some good woman possessed of sufficient means to support him in comfort, and who would love him well enough to spare him the necessity of mental overwork, for which he was not now fitted.

It may be here remarked that of all the women that we know of to whom Poe offered his platonic devotion, Mrs. Shew was the only one by whom it was promptly and decidedly rejected.