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Mary Newton Stanard - The Dreamer

M >> Mary Newton Stanard >> The Dreamer




"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 passed 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 anticipation 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
pronounced his "No!"

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

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 grass 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 damning 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.

Certain cities, like certain persons, are witches; they have power to
cast a spell. New York is one of them.

Edgar and Virginia Poe had known hard times in New York--the bitterness
of hard times in a city large enough for each man to mind his own
business and leave his neighbors to mind theirs. Yet as the boat slowed
down and neared the wharf, and--past the shipping--they descried the
houses and spires of town looming, ghostlike, through the enveloping
mist of the soft, grey April day, it was with a thrill that these two
standing hand in hand--like children--upon the deck, clasped each
other's fingers with closer pressure and whispered,

"New York once more!"

It was their first little journey in the world just together, just they
two, and much as they loved the dear mother--their kind earthly
Providence, as they laughingly called her--there was something very
sweet about it. It was almost like a wedding journey. The star of hope
which never deserted them for long, no matter what their disappointments
and griefs might be, shone bright above their horizon--their beautiful
faces reflected its light. By it the lines of care and bitterness seemed
suddenly to have been smoothed out of Edgar's face, and under its
influence Virginia's merry laugh rippled out upon the moist air, causing
the eyes of her fellow-travellers to turn admiringly her way many
times.

Her husband hovered tenderly near her, drawing her shawl with solicitous
hand closer about her shoulders and standing upon the windward side of
her to protect her from the damp and keen breeze. He noted with delight
the fresh color of her cheeks--the life and color in her eyes.

"Do you know, Sweetheart," he said, "You have not coughed once since we
left Philadelphia! The change is doing you good already."

Both were blythe as birds. As the boat tied up at the wharf a gentle
shower set in, but it did not effect their spirits. He left her on board
with some ladies whose acquaintance she had made during the journey,
while he fared forth in the rain in quest of a boarding-house. As he
stepped ashore he met a man selling second-hand umbrellas. He bought
quite a substantial one for sixty-two cents and went on his way
rejoicing in the lucky meeting and the good bargain.

In Greenwich Street he found what he sought--a genteel-looking house
with "Boarders wanted," upon a card in the window. Another good bargain
was made, and hailing a passing "hack" he hastened back to the boat for
Virginia and her trunk and soon they were rattling over the
cobblestones.

"Why this is quite a mansion," exclaimed the little wife, as she peered
out at the house before which the carriage stopped--for while the
gentility of the establishment was of the proverbial "shabby" variety,
the brown-stone porch and pillars gave it an air of unmistakable
dignity.

Not long after their arrival the supper-bell rang, and they found
themselves responding with alacrity. When they took the seats assigned
them and their hungry eyes took in the feast spread before them, they
squeezed each other's hands under the table--these romantic young lovers
and dreamers. They had been happy in spite of frugality. Many a time
while hunger gnawed they had kissed each other and vowed they wanted
nothing (high Heaven pardoning the gallant lie!) Yet now, the
traveller's appetite making their palates keen--the travellers weariness
in their limbs--they were seized upon by an unblushing joy at finding
themselves seated at an ample board with a kindly landlady at the head
pouring tea--strong and hot--whose aroma was as the breath of roses in
their nostrels, while her portly and beaming spouse, at the foot, with
blustering hospitality pressed the bounty of the table upon them. A
bounteous table indeed, this decidedly cheap and somewhat shabby
boarding-house spread, and to their eager appetites everything seemed
delicious.

There were wheat bread and rye bread, butter and cheese, cold country
ham and cold spring veal--generous slices of both, piled up like little
mountains--and tea-cakes in like abundance.

They feasted daintily--exquisitely, as they did everything, but they
feasted heartily for the first time in months.

After supper they went to their room--a spacious and comfortably, though
plainly, furnished one, with a bright fire burning in a jolly little
stove. Their spirits knew no bounds.

"What would Catalina say to this solid comfort, Sis?" queried Eddie. "I
think she would faint for joy."

For answer Virginia smiled upon him through a mist of tears.

"Why Virginia--my Heart--" he cried in amazement. "What is it?"

"Only that it is too beautiful!" she managed to say. "And to think that
Muddie and Catalina are not here to share it with us!"

"Just as soon as I can scrape together enough money to pay for Muddie's
board and travelling expenses we will have them with us," he assured
her.

She dried her eyes and perched upon his knee while he went through his
pockets and bringing out all the money he had, counted it into her palm.

"Four dollars and a half," he said. "Not much, but we are fortunate to
have that. And with such fine living as we get here so cheap it will go
quite a long way. Let me see--the price of board and lodging is only
three and a half a week for both of us. Seven dollars would pay our way
for a fortnight--and in a fortnight's time there's no telling what may
turn up! Some editor might buy 'The Raven,' or money due me for work
already sold might come in. If I could only contrive to raise this sum
to seven dollars we could rest easy for at least a fortnight."

"I'll tell you how," said Virginia. "You have acquaintances here--hunt
up some of them and borrow three dollars. Then you would have enough to
pay two weeks board ahead and fifty cents over for pocket money."

"Wise little head!" exclaimed he, tapping her brow, "The very idea!"

And forthwith all care as to ways and means was thrown from both their
minds, and they gave themselves up to an evening of enjoyment of the
comforts of their brown-stone mansion.

While Virginia was resting her husband went out for a little shopping to
be done with part of the fifty cents they had allowed themselves for
spending money. First he exchanged a few cents for a tin pan to be
filled with water and placed on top of the stove, for the comfort of
Virginia who had been oppressed by the dry heat. Then a few cents more
went for two buttons his coat lacked, a skein of thread to sew them on
with, and a skein of silk with which Virginia would mend a rent in his
trousers made by too close contact with a nail on deck of the steamboat.

Next day was a bright, beautiful, spring Sunday. The sky and budding
trees had the newly-washed aspect often seen after a season of rain. The
sound of church-bells was on the air; the streets were filled with
people in their best clothes, and the new boarders in Greenwich Street,
fortified with a breakfast of ham and eggs and coffee, jubilantly joined
that stream of humanity which flowed toward the point above which
Trinity Church spire pierced the clear sky.

* * * * *

On Monday, Edgar Poe was taken with what he called a "writing fit." For
several days (during which Edgar Goodfellow remained in the ascendency)
the fit remained on him, and he wrote incessantly--only pausing long
enough, now and then, to read the result to Virginia.

"This will earn us the money to bring Muddie and Catalina to New York,"
he said with confidence.

At last the manuscript was finished and no sooner was the ink dry upon
the paper than he took it to _The Sun_, which promptly bought and paid
for it, and upon the next Sunday, April 13, printed it not as a story,
but as news.

"Astounding News by Express, _via_ Norfolk!" (The headlines said). "The
Atlantic crossed in Three Days." Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's
Flying Machines!!!

"Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, S.C., of Mr. Mason, Mr.
Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in
the Steering Balloon, 'Victoria,' after a passage of seventy-five hours
from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the Voyage!"

Strange as it may seem, the "astounding news" was received by the people
of New York for fact. There was a rush for copies of the _Sun_ which
announced with truth that it was the only paper in possession of the
"news," and not until denial came from Charleston, several days later,
was it suspected that the "news" was all a hoax and that Edgar
Goodfellow was simply having a little fun at the expense of the public.

The story did, indeed, earn money with which to bring "Muddie" and
"Catalina" to New York. It did more--it brought the editors to Greenwich
Street looking for manuscript. They begged for stories as clever and as
sensational as "The Balloon Hoax," but in vain. Edgar Goodfellow had
vanished and in his place was Edgar the Dreamer who only had to tell of,

"A wild, weird clime that lieth sublime
Out of Space--out of Time,

* * * * *

Where the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past,--

Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by,--
White-robed forms of friends long given
In agony to the Earth and Heaven."

It was in vain that the editors besought him to try something else in
the vein of "The Balloon Hoax," assuring him that that was what his
readers were expecting of him, after his recent "hit"--that was what
they would be willing to pay him for--pay him well. Was it the Imp of
the Perverse that caused him to positively decline, and to persist that
"Dreamland" was all he had to offer just then?

It was Mr. Graham who finally accepted this quaint and beautiful poem,
and who published it--in the June number of _Graham's Magazine_.

* * * * *

In October following the return of the Poes to New York--October of the
year 1844--Mr. Nathaniel P. Willis who was then editor of _The Evening
Mirror_, and had been editor of _The Dollar Magazine_, when it awarded
the prize of a hundred dollars to "The Gold Bug," was seated at his desk
in the "Mirror" office, when in response to his "Come in," a stranger
appeared in his doorway--a woman--a lady in the best sense of a word
almost become obsolete. A _gentlewoman_ describes her best of all. She
was a gentlewoman, then, past middle age, yet beautiful with the high
type of beauty that only ripe years, beautifully lived, can bring--the
beauty that compensates for the fading of the rose on cheek and lip, the
dimming of the light in the eyes, for the frost on the brow--the beauty
of patience, of tenderness, of faith unquenchable by fire or flood of
adversity. A history was written on the face--a history in which there
was plainly much of tragedy. Yet not one bitter line was there.

It was a face, withal, which could only have belonged to a mother, and
might well have belonged to the mother, Niobe.

In figure she was tall and stately, with a gentle dignity. Her dress was
simple to plainness, and might have been called shabby had it been less
beautifully neat. It was of unrelieved black, and she wore a
conventional widow's bonnet, with floating white strings.

The reader needs no introduction to this stranger to Mr. Willis, who in
a gentle, well-bred voice, with a certain mournful cadence in it,
announced herself as "Mrs. Clemm--the mother-in-law of Mr. Poe."

No connection with a famous author was needed to inspire Mr. Willis with
respect for his visitor. She seemed to him to be an "angel upon earth,"
and it was with an air approaching reverence that he handed her to the
most comfortable chair the office afforded.

Her errand was quickly made known. Edgar Poe was ill and not able to
come out himself. His wife was an invalid, and so it devolved upon her
to seek employment for him. In spite of his fame, she said, and of his
industry, his manuscripts brought him so little money that he was in
need of the necessities of life. Regular work with a regular income,
however small, she felt to be his only hope of being able to rise above
want.

Mr. Willis was distressed and promptly offered all he could. It was not
much, but it was better than nothing--it was the place of assistant
editor of his paper.

For months following, the figure of Edgar Poe was a familiar one in the
office of the _Evening Mirror_. Neither in his character of Edgar the
Dreamer nor that of Edgar Goodfellow was he especially known there, but
simply as a modest, industrious sub-editor, doing the work of a
mechanical paragraphist as quietly, as unobtrusively, as a machine. With
rarely a smile and rarely a word, he stood from morning till night at
his desk in a corner of the editorial room--pale, still and beautiful as
a statue, punctual and efficient and the embodiment of courtesy always.

And quietly and unobtrusively his personality made itself felt. Mr.
Willis came to love him for his innate charm and for his faithfulness to
duty.

* * * * *

But the desk of a sub-editor could not long hold a genius like Edgar
Poe. He bore its drudgery without complaint, but when an opening that
seemed to invite his ambition, as well as to promise better pay came, he
hailed it with enthusiasm. In March of the next year he formed a
partnership with two New York journalists, as editors and managers of
_The Broadway Journal_. A few months later saw him sole proprietor as
well as editor, and for a short, bright period his old dream of a
magazine of his own, in which he could write as he pleased, came true.
Its realization seemed to inspire him with new energy. How many heads,
how many right hands had the man--his readers asked each other--that he
could turn out such a mass of work of such high order? His own and many
other of the magazines of the day were filled with reviews and
criticisms that made him the terror of other writers, and with stories
and poems that made him the marvel of readers everywhere.

His works were translated into the tongues of France, Germany and Spain,
and his fame grew in all of those countries.

Yet the most that he could afford in the way of a home was up two
flights of stairs--two rooms in the third story of a dingy old house in
East Broadway. Mother Clemm and Virginia kept them bright and spotless
and "Catalina" dosing on the hearth gave a final touch of comfort, and
they were far above the noise and dust of the streets, with windows
opening upon a goodly view of the sky. They had a front and a back room,
so that the beauties of the dawn and the noontide--of sunset and
moonrise--were all theirs.

And the Wolf came not near the door, and the three whose natures were
like to the natures of the oak, the vine and the heartsease, and who
lived for each other only, dreamed again the dream of the wonderful
valley--the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.




CHAPTER XXIX.


Up, up the stairs, two steps at a time, sprang The Dreamer, one white
January day, and burst in upon Mother Clemm who was preparing dinner,
and Virginia who was mending his coat. He was in a great glee. He caught
"Muddie" in his arms where she stood with her hands deep in a tray of
dough, and kissed her, then stooped over Virginia and kissed _her_, and
dropped into her lap a crisp ten dollar bank note. She gave a little
scream of delight.

"Where did you get it?" she cried?

"From Willis. I've sold him 'The Raven.' He's vastly taken with it and
not only paid me the ten, in advance, but will give the poem an
editorial puff in the _Mirror_ of the nineteenth. He showed me a rough
draft. He will say that it is 'the most effective example of fugitive
poetry ever published in this country,' and predict that it will 'stick
in the memory of everybody who reads it!'"

"And it will! It will!" cried Virginia. "Especially that 'Nevermore.'
I've done everything in time to it since the first night you read it to
us."

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