Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/75

Rh How shall the ritual, then, be read—the requiem how be sung By you—by yours, the evil eye—by yours, the slanderous tongue That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?

"And here is a passage from The Penance of Roland, by Henry B. Hirst, published in 'Graham's Magazine' for January, 1848: Mine the tongue that wrought this evil—mine the false and slanderous tongue That done to death the Lady Gwineth—Oh, my soul is sadly wrung! "Demon! devil," groaned the warrior, "devil of the evil eye!" I do not object [concludes Poe] to his stealing my verses; but I do object to his stealing them in bad grammar. My quarrel with him is not, in short, that he did this thing, but that he has went and done did it."

Scores of passages like these, together with his instant recognition and loyal defense of the first efforts of a young English writer known then only as "Boz," are evidence that Poe was very far from being the stark, solemn, unsmiling figure that so many picture him. He could even laugh at himself. When he had won the hundred-dollar prize in 1833 and Mr. Latrobe, one of the committee of award, asked the unknown young writer what else he had for publication, he replied that he was engaged on a voyage to the moon. "And at once," says Mr. Latrobe, "he began to describe the journey with so much animation that for all I now remember, I may have fancied myself the companion of his aerial journey. When he had finished his description, he apologized for his excitability, which