"
In a letter to Lowell, Poe has well described himself in a sentence:
"My life has been whim--impulse--passion--a longing for solitude--a
scorn of all things present in an earnest desire for the future."
Interpreted, this means that in a sense he never really reached
maturity, that he remained a slave to his impulses and emotions, that
he detested the ordinary business of life and could not adapt himself
to it, that his mind was full of dreams of ideal beauty and
perfection, that his whole soul yearned to attain the highest
pleasures of artistic creation. His was perpetually a deeply agitated
soul; as such, it was natural he should outwardly seem irritable,
impatient, restless, discontented, and solitary. It is impossible to
believe that there was any strain of real evil in Poe. A man who could
inspire such devotion as he had from such a woman as Mrs. Clemm, a man
who loved flowers and children and animal pets, who could be so
devoted a husband, who could so consecrate himself to art, was not a
bad man. Yet his acts were often, as we have seen, most
reprehensible. Frequently the subject of slander, he was not a victim
of conspiracy to defame. Although circumstances were many times
against him, he was his own worst enemy. He was cursed with a
temperament. His mind was analytical and imaginative, and gave no
thought to the ethical.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30