THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
“indicating by the whole carriage of his life that he was of
a different order from those among whom he lived; timid,
susceptible, lost in re very, fond of solitude, or seeking no
better company than a book, the years had stolen on till he
had arrived at the mournful period of boyhood when ec-
centricities excite attention and command no sympathy.
Poe, unlike Isaac Disraeli, could at times completely yield
himself to the gay companionship of reckless young fellows.
But down in his heart he cared nothing for that wild dis-
sipation that so often characterized his actions. It was but an
effort, an unsuccessful effort, to make himself like unto
others. Eccentricity is often a curse, and always a crime
—a crime perpetrated against the ignorance of willfully
common-place people; people who live according to rule;
people who erect a standard, and who would have all live
up, or rather down to it, and woe unto the man who departs
therefrom.
Edgar Allan Poe, when first I knew him, was seventeen
years of age, rather short of stature, thick and somewhat
compactly set. He was strong of arm and swift of foot—for
he was an expert in athletic and gymnastic arts. A more
beautiful face on man or woman I have never seen. It was
the beauty of the soul, always near the surface, always in a
glow of strange, unearthly passion. His walk was rapid,
and his movement quick and nervous. He had about him the
air of a native-born Frenchman, and a mercurial disposition
deliciously unstable. He was fond of cards. Seven-up and
loo were his favorite games. He played like a mad-man. He
drank like a mad-man. He did both under a sudden impulse.
Something always seemed to drive him on. Unseen forces
played havoc with his reason. He would seize the glass that
he actually loathed, yet always seemed to love, and with-
out the least apparent pleasure swallow the contents,
quickly draining the last drop. One glass, and his whole
nervous nature ran riot within its highly tortured self. Then
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
2J
followed a flow of wild talk which enchained each fortunate
listener with a syren-like power.
It is curious to follow the subsequent lives of those men
who were his constant companions around the card-table,
and who filled, from out of the same punch-bowl, their
never-empty glasses with the same peach and honey.
Peach and honey, that drink once so popular, long years
ago, with the Virginia and Carolina gentlemen of the old
school.
There was Thomas S. Gholson, and of all the set there
was not one more reckless. He was afterward a pious judge
of some distinction and of great integrity.
Upton Beale, who always held the winning card, became
an Episcopal Minister. He was stationed for years, in fact
until his death, at Norfolk, Virginia, and he was beloved
by the people of his parish.
Philip Slaughter, Poe’s most intimate card-friend, is still
living. He, too, a minister of the gospel. I am told that he is
an excellent God-fearing man. I wonder if he remembers
those wayward days of his youth, when he and Poe were
partners at cards, and held between them a common
treasury.
I have lost sight of Nat. Dunn and Wm. A. Creighton. In
all likelihood they have gone unto that other land.
Billie Burwell, a rare genius of that old set, has suffered
many changes of fortune. He is neither judge nor minister;
unlike the rest, he has never been able to finish sowing his
wild oats. When last I heard of him he was living in New
Orleans. He was still assiduously cultivating the refined
society of kings and queens, and he was still a large dealer
in diamonds and clubs. And there was yet another one,
Thos. Goode Tucker, of North Carolina. He was a great-
hearted fellow. He was handsome, bold, and reckless. He
was a warm friend and a bitter enemy, and he was passion-
ately devoted to young Poe. This same Tucker was a great
fox hunter. Poe and he were the constant terror of that
28
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
Piedmont country. Whenever the farmers of Albemarle found
their fences down, their fields of small grain trampled and
all but ruined, they would roundly swear those infernal
young rascals—Poe and Tucker—were the guilty ones, out on
the chase again. And those farmers were right.
Tucker is now, like unto myself, an old man; yet he wrote
me the other day, “Come with me for the sake of those old
times, let us follow the hounds once more.”
A strong, linked intimacy existed between Tucker and
Poe. Tucker was not only intimate with the dissipated side
of his nature, but with that other and better side known to
only a few, principally women. It was a side which good
and pure women were so sure to find out, appreciate, and
defend, when others were so ready to blame. W hatever
Poe may have been in after years, he was, when I knew him
at the University of Virginia, as honest a friend as the
sometimes waywardness of his otherwise noble nature
would allow. There was then not the least touch of insin-
cerity, and never the slightest indication of that maliciously
fickle disposition which in after times was so often brought
up against him in life, and against his memory in death.
Marked peculiarities do not elicit sympathy from the com-
mon run of people—the great majority. They place the
unhappy possessor in a most undesirable position. Misunder-
standings constantly arise, and they can not often be ex-
plained, even if explanation be sought. Therefore it is not a
m atter of much surprise that Edgar Poe did not have many
intimate friends. For he was indeed, even when I knew him
—a mere boy—a man of strongly marked peculiarities. These
peculiarities constantly led him into trouble. He made
enemies out of those who should have been his friends. And
of this he was more oftentimes unaware. For his enemies
at the university were of that most dangerous, most con-
temptible order —secret enemies—fellows ready to give the
stab from behind, and under cover of darkness. A band of
envious cowards outskirt the ways of all such men as Poe.
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
2g
And always must eccentric greatness pay a penalty; nay, not
one, but numberless ones to the clamoring, commonplace
fool and the silent, envious knave.
Yet Poe was a power when he cared to try his strength. He
was full of adaptability. He could play cards and drink
peach and honey hour after hour, and day in and day out,
with those who merely chanced to be thrown in his way.
But a genuine friendship asks for something more and
better than ordinary conviviality and a shuffling, each in
turn, the same pack of cards. Other ties than those must
&n
bsp; be found to bring two souls together in a life-long attach-
ment.
There was a curious magnetic sympathy existing not only
between our hearts but even between our minds. In the
silent watches of the night I have often closed the book be-
fore me, no m atter how interesting, risen from my seat and,
moving under the guidance of an irresistible impulse, gone
out beneath the arcade, so full of strange shadows, and
started toward the room near by, occupied by Poe, and have
met him in his own doorway, coming to me, actuated by
the same irresistible impulse. Not once, twice, or thrice, but
again and again has this happened. And often in those silent
watches of the night did he read to me the early productions
of his youth. They were not published—not one of them —
because unspared by his critical hand. His sensitive nature
oftentimes made him a ruthless destroyer of much that was
good. He could not brook the idle, laughing censure of his
comrades. On several occasions I persuaded him to give his
own small circle of intimate friends the rare privilege of
listening to him read his own weird writings.
Those men—now all dead but Tucker and myself—who
were so fortunate as to hear those impromptu readings
could never forget them. In their old age their fireside
stories were all the better for that memory. From out of the
past, clear and strongly outlined, rise those readings. It is the
memory of one especial night. The hour is late—after twelve.
3 0
׳THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
On West Range one midnight lamp is burning. It is the room
of Edgar Allan Poe—No. 13. Our small circle is complete.
By accident we have gathered there. It is a rare meeting,
unmarred by the presence of uncongenial souls. Each a kin-
dred spirit, each in sympathy with the other. There is a short,
impressive silence. Then, spell-bound, barely breathing, we
listen to a story, weird and wonderfully strange, which Poe
has just written—the ink not yet dry on the last page.
He reads with his whole soul thrown into every action
and into each musical intonation of his well-toned voice. Now
loud and rapid, like the mad rush of many waters; now
low and slow, like the trickling of a stream in a hollow
cavern. Then sinking into a whispered sentence of incan-
tations and mad curses; then into a softly murmured, yet
passionate vow of some ardent, hopeless lover, and—the
story is told, the reading over. Ah, it was indeed a privilege
to be there!
Once he wrote and read to us a long story full of quaint
humor. Unlike the most of his stones, it was free from that
usual somber coloring and those sad conclusions merged in
a mist of impenetrable gloom that we so often find in his
published writings. In a spirit of idle jest and not of adverse
criticism, some one of our number spoke lightly of the story.
This produced within him a fit of nervous anger, and he
flung every sheet behind the blaze on his hearth. And thus
was lost a story of excellent parts. “Gaffy,” the name of his
hero, furnished a name for the story. He was often there-
after good humoredly called “Gaffy” Poe, which was a
name that he did not like.
Now, in those early days of the University of Virginia,
a pernicious practice prevailed among the students at large.
It was gambling at cards and for money. This vice was then
prevalent among the best of Southern people. But Thomas
Jefferson did not propose to tolerate its dangerous presence
in his well-planned institution of learning. He found that
it needed a speedy and effectual check. This, the year before
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
31
his death, he promptly attempted to give; and while he may
not have been entirely successful, yet, as one of the results
of that effort, we were driven into The Valley of Unrest,
which lies hidden in the wooded heart of the Ragged Moun-
tains.
Mr. Jefferson, after much anxious deliberation with the
University Board of Directors and others, decided upon a
plan to eradicate the baleful habit of playing cards for sake of
gold and silver coin. He consulted with the civil authorities.
He found out the names of the most noted young gamblers,
and he gave instructions that they should be indicted in
due form and brought before the next grand jury. So, one
bright morning in the early spring, the sheriff, with a goodly
posse, suddenly appeared within the doorway of our lecture-
room during the Latin hour. The staid old professor was
calling the roll. That servant of the law stood in readiness
to serve his writs on certain ones as the professor should
mention the names of each guilty party. But gay young
rascals are not to be so easily ensnared within the toils of the
eager enemy. We needed no word of warning. The shadow
across the doorway, and a gang of men behind, told its own
story. With Edgar Allan Poe for our leader, we scattered in
every direction—some through the window, and some through
an opposite door.
Sheriff, posse, and professor were left in full possession of
the lecture-room. Once on the outside, under the guidance
of Poe—our master spirit in all times of danger—we mar-
shaled our scattered forces. Then, the hot pursuit. But those
whom they wanted the most, the ringleaders—our own set—
had made a successful escape, not to our rooms, for there
Mountains, a jagged spur of the Blue Ridge, over an almost
untrodden path.
But it was a hidden way well known to Poe, over which,
always alone, he had often traveled. W ith ruling passion,
strong even in hasty flight, some of the party had managed
3 2
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
to arm themselves with a deck of cards and a goodly portion
of peach and honey. This, in order that the hours of our
self-imposed banishment might not hang heavy upon our
idle hands.
Our place of concealment was The Valley of Unrest. It
was a beautiful dell, high up in the mountains, almost inac-
cessible, and far away from the beaten path. It was the
favorite haunt of Edgar Allan Poe. W hen almost over-
powered by those strange spells of mental depression, ap-
proaching near unto the border-land of insanity, thither
would he go, and alone. There for hours he would often
linger, buried deep in the bitter-sweets of melancholy; and
there, environed by low-sweeping pines, murmuring perpet-
ual dirges, his active brain became strongly imbued with
those wild, fanciful ideas which are so realistic even in
their unreality; for, out of the dark-green, needle-pointed
foliage of those low-sweeping pines there forever actually
seemed to ooze a dreary sombemess that permeated all
the atmosphere with a gloom which hung like an uncanny
mist ove
r the beautiful dell.
It was a mysterious place. Something seemed to hush our
voices and to muffle each footfall. If the spirit of adventure
had not within each one of us been driven up to fever heat
by the excitement of the moment, there could have been
no human power able to detain us in that place of mystery.
Surely it was this haunt of his youth that Poe did in after
years so cunningly picture in exquisite verse, and fittingly
termed The Valley of Unrest.
It must indeed be true that Poe was filled with the memory
of that lonely dell, which lies so deeply buried in the great
wooded heart of the Ragged Mountains, when he wrote
that beautiful poem. And in that lonely dell, for the better
part of three days and nights, we did conceal ourselves
from the search of the sheriff and his posse in that long ago
springtime.
Each day it was our custom to play cards and drink
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIM SELF POE
3 3
peach and honey. Each night we would light our torches,
kindle a fire of pine fagots to dispel the chill night airs of
early spring, then each in turn tell his story. After midnight
we would go in single file and in silence down the mountain
side. On the outskirts of the University we would find a
little knot of anxious friends ready to supply us with pro-
visions and peach and honey.
Before the coming of the dawn we would find ourselves
back again within the shadows of that lonely dell, The
Valley of Unrest.
Two lines that occur in the poem—
“ Over the lilies there that wave
A nd weep above a nameless grave” *
were uttered by Edgar Allan Poe while he told his story on
the last night of our banishment in the Ragged Mountains;
and it was the last story told on that night. Each time Poe’s
tale was the last; and while he talked we would forget to
replenish the fire, forget every thing but the intricate plot
which he might chance to unroll before us. W hen he finished
we would, shivering, rise to our feet, and hastily depart from
the spot and pass away from under its uncanny shadows,
but not from the memory thereof. All of these years have not
brought me a forgetfulness of those springtime nights and
of that one last night.
On the afternoon of the third day the glad news came
that we had been forgiven. Poe, our ringleader, was the only