Sometimes he fought his
weakness successfully for several years, but always it conquered in
the end.
Moreover, he speaks of a very special cause in the latter part of his
life, which in fairness should be heard in his own written words to a
friend: "Six years ago a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved
before, ruptured a blood vessel in singing. Her life was despaired
of. I took leave of her forever and underwent all the agonies of her
death. She recovered partially and I again hoped. At the end of a year
the vessel broke again. I went through precisely the same scene....
Then again--again--and even once again, at varying intervals. Each
time I felt all the agonies of her death--and at each accession of her
disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more
desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive--nervous in
a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of
horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute unconsciousness, I
drank--God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my
enemies referred the insanity to the drink, rather than the drink to
the insanity.... It was the horrible never-ending oscillation between
hope and despair, which I could _not_ longer have endured without
total loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, then, I
received a new, but--O God!--how melancholy an existence!"
This statement, and the other facts mentioned, are not offered as
wholly excusing Poe.
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