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.
