The Next Deluge [pp. 104-105]

104 THE CRA VE OF POE-THE A EXT DEL (JUE. [JANUARY 27,
the quivering corners of her mouth), "I will
write. God knows what will come of it, or
how I shall bear the waiting for the answer;
but-I will write."
"Do," say I; and then I draw an arm chair to the fire, and Lenore sits down to the
writing-table. The opening sentences seem
to be hatched with difficulty, but after them
her pen runs glibly enough: it is going to be
a longer letter than his. "Lenore," say I,
presently, turning my head round, and speak ing diffidently, "I think that, on the supposi tion that this may not bring him back-a
most improbable one, but still possible-I (do not be angry)-I would not make it too
affectionate." She flushes scarlet, reads it
hastily over, then tears it into a thousand bits,
and, running over to the fire, tosses the fragments in. "Nor too cold," I subjoin, rather
startled at the effect of my caution. "Do
not you understand?" I continue, eagerly.
"The kind of letter you should write is one
that, if he is so disposed, will bring him back
again; and that, if he is not so disposed, will
not make you hot to think of having sent it."
To compose such a letter as I have thus
described seems a hard task. The hearth is
strewn with little shreds of paper, before one
that hits the golden mean between the fond
and the frigid, is written fairly out without
blots or erasures.
"Will you read it?" asks my sister, holding it out rather reluctantly to me, when it is
at length finished. "I think I had rather
you did not, but you may, if you wish."
I shake my head, and swallow down my
curiosity:
"Why should I? It is between you and
him; what has a third person to do with it?"
She turns away relieved, folds it up, directs
it, and fastens the envelope.
"Jemima," she says, clasping my arms
with her two hot slender hands, while her
great solemn eyes fix themselves, feverish
and miserably excited, on mine, " the responsibility of this lies with you. I do not know
whether it is affectionate or not; I cannot
judge-I hardly know what is in it; but if it
fail, the shame of it will kill me."
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
THE GRAVE OF POE.
T was on a cold, dull, and dreary day, last
winter, while attending the funeral of
Mrs. Maria Clemm, the aunt and mother-inlaw of Edgar A. Poe, that I first saw the
nameless grave of that gifted but most unfortunate poet. She had died the day before,
and her last request was to be buried by the
side of her "darling Eddie," in Westminster
Church-vard, corner of Fayette and Green
Streets, Baltimore. No stone has ever marked
the place of his burial, though, shortly after
his death, a marble was prepared, which was
accidentally broken in the stone-cutter's shop,
only a few days before it was to be erected.
It bore the following inscription:
"RIC
TANDEM FELICIS
CONDUNTUiR RELIQUI.E
EDGARI ALLAN POE.
OBIIT OCT. 7, 1849,
ET. 38."
" tic tandemn felicis! " Here at last he is
happy! Can any thing be more beautifully
pathetic? Here, misguided child of genius,
victim of want, of disappointment, and of
thy own fiery passions, thou didst find that
peace which was denied thee during life!
In my conversations with Mrs. Clemm, she
gave me many interesting facts about Poe's
personal appearance, his dress, etc. He was
five feet eight and a quarter inches high;
slightly but elegantly formed; his eyes were
dark gray, almond-shaped, with long, black
lashes; his forehead was broad, massive, and
white; his mouth and teeth were beautiful;
he wore a long but not heavy mustache; his
hair was dark brown, almost black, and curly;
his feet and hands small as a woman's. He
was very neat-even fastidious-about his
dress; was fond of gray clothes; he always
wore a turn-down collar and black cra vat.
His custom was to walk up and down his
library when engaged in literary composition.
He never sat down to write until he had ar ranged the plot, the characters, and even the
language, he was to use. To this may be at tributed the extraordinary finish which his
compositions display.
The true story of Poe's death has never
been correctly told. It is this: In the sum mer of 1849 he left New York for Virginia.
In Richmond he met Miss Elmira Shelton,
whom he had known in his youth, renewed
his acquaintance, and, in a few weeks, they
were engaged to be married. He wrote to
his friends in the North that he should pass
the remainder of his life in Virginia, where
the happiest days of his youth had been
spent. Early in October he set out from
Richmond to fulfil a literary engagement in
New York, and to prepare for his marriage,
which was to take place on the 17th of the
month. Arriving in Baltimore, he found that
he had missed the Philadelphia train which
he expected to take, and would have to wait
two or three hours for the next train. He
went into a restaurant near the depot to get
some refreshments. There he met some of
his old West-Point friends, who invited him
to a champagne-supper that night. He accepted the invitation, and went. At first he
refused to drink, but at last he was induced
to take a glass of champagne. That set him
off, and, in a few hours, he was madly drunk.
In this state he wandered off from his friends,
was robbed and beaten by ruffians, and left insensible in the street all night. The next
morning he was picked up and taken to the
Maryland Hospital. He was delirious with
brain-fever. He was well cared for by the
physicians of the hospital, but he was beyond
the skill of the doctors. iHe lingered two or
three days, and died on Sunday, October 7,
1849, in the thirty-eighth year of his age.
His funeral was attended by the Hon. Z. Collins Lee, Dr. Snodgrass, Nelson Poe (his
cousin), and Henry Herring (his uncle).
Washington Irving sweetly says of the
grave: "It buries every error, covers every
defect, extinguishes every resentment. From
its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look
down upon the grave even of an enemy, and
feel not a compunctious throb that he should
ever have warred with the poor handful of
dust that lies mouldering before him!"
Let us, then, forget the errors of Edgar
Poe, remembering the noble lines of Stoddard:
"He lies in dust. and the stone is rolled
Over the sepulchre dim and cold;
He has cancelled all he has done or said,
And gone to the dear and holy dead.
Let us forget the path he trod,
And leave him now to his Maker, God I"
EUGENE L. DIDIER.
THE NEXT DELUGE.
NOTHING is more interesting to the hu man mind than facts-except theories.
A theory that explains difficult phenomena,
however imperfect it may be, is sure of a wel come. And a theory that helps us toward an
explanation, though confessedly not the best
or the final one, is held to be of value to sci ence, and is dignified by scientific men with
the name of a "provisional hypothesis."
Doubtless there is too much, especially in
this country, of this greedy acceptance.of hy potheses. But it is not our purpose at present
to challenge too severely the theory that we
have on hand. We are content to present it,
in outline, as an interesting piece of geological
speculation. "How can we account," men have
asked, with wonder, "for the buried elephants
in the extreme north, or for the striation of
the rocks that every college-boy has noticed
in New England? What power scattered the
ponderous stones known as'erratic bowl ders' all over the Northern Hemisphere, urg ing them far upon the sides of mountain-ranges
that have a wholly different formation from
their own? What slow or sudden mysterious
power submerged, without mixture of earth,
or rock, or rubbish, the vast antediluvian forests that make the seams of our coal-beds?
In what balance were the seas weighed when
their mass was poured upon the Southern
Hemisphere, and the land arose in the north? "T
To these questions geology has given, as yet,
no full or definite answer. But a French
mathematician, M. Alphonse Adh6mar, propounds what he believes to be the fuill explanation of these and of other great mysteries
in the present condition of the globe.
His view is based upon astronomical facts,
as follows; and, without entering into his
subtle processes of demonstration, we may
easily understand the argument: "The earth
has, besides its spinning motion upon its axis,
an oscillatory movement of the same axis, that
is precisely similar to that of a top which
' wabbles' while its point spins upon the same
spot of ground. The top' wabbles' through
a single circuit in a second or less; the ponderous earth-top requires no less than twentyone thousand years for this swing of its axis.
This period is that of the precession of the
equinoxes. During one-half of this period the
north-pole is more inclined toward the sun;
during the other half, the south-pole. At
present our own hemisphere, the northern,
has the advantage, being more turned toward
the sun; so that the sum of our spring and
summer seasons exceeds by six days that of
our autumn and winter. The reverse is the
I
TEE GRA VYE OF P OE.- T7E -A EXT DEX UGE.
104
[JANUARY 27,