Mr. John Mackenzie might well have said, as he did, that Poe's marriage was the greatest misfortune of his life and as a millstone around his neck, holding him down against every effort to rise. But perhaps not even this close friend knew how keenly the poet must have felt the narrowness of his life, the sordidness of his home, and the humiliation of his poverty. Patiently and uncomplainingly he bore his unhappy lot; and it is to be noted to his credit that howsoever he might at times go astray, no word or act of unkindness toward the wife and mother who loved him was ever known to escape from him.
It will be seen from all that has here been written, in the light of prosaic truth, that Poe's real character was one very different from that which it has pleased the world in general to ascribe to him--judging him as it does by the character of his writings as a poet. The folly of such judgment, and the extent to which it was until recently carried, is simply surprising. It is true that he appeared to have but one ideal--the death of a woman young, lovely and beloved--and that ideal in the imagining of the world resolved itself into the personality of his wife. She, they concluded, was the original of all the Lenores, and Anabel Lees, and Ullalumes, which inspired his melancholy and despairing lyre; and in its gloom and hopelessness they could see nothing but the expression of the poet's own nature. As well have accused Rembrandt of being gloomy and morose because he painted in dark colors. Like the artist, Poe loved obscure and sombre ideas and conceptions, and he delighted in embodying these in his poems as much as Rembrandt did in transferring his own to canvas.
Lest the reader should be under the impression that much of what I relate concerning Poe's childhood and certain circumstances connected with his early youth is taken from Gill's _Life of Poe_, I will make an explanation.
At the time when the first edition of Gill's work was issued I was engaged in writing what I intended to be a little book concerning Poe, compiled from my own personal knowledge of him and what I had been told by others. In some way Gill heard of this, and wrote to me, coolly requesting to be allowed to see my manuscript, which I, of course, excused myself from doing. Again and again he wrote, saying that he "merely wished to see exactly what I had written." In self-defence, I finally sent him the first part or chapter of the manuscript, he promising to return it as soon as read. After some weeks it was returned to me, without a word accompanying; and at the same time a second edition of Gill's "_Life_" was issued--the first having been suppressed--in which, to my surprise, I found copious extracts from my manuscript. All those little anecdotes of Poe's childhood were thus appropriated, with more important matter--such as Poe's dissipation when in Richmond and his enlisting in the army, both of which Gill had in his first edition positively denied; and this he made use of as though it had been his own original material. My book was, of course, ruined, and all that I could do was, some years after, to write "_The Last Days of Poe_," published in _Scribner's Magazine_, though even from this Gill made "_Notes_" for the Appendix of his second or third edition.