The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-02
IT co,rys roo LATE.

We have lately seen 1t announced that the original manuscript copy of Poe's ''Ulalume" has been found and will be offered for sale. and it will doubtless bring . good price. The manuscript copy of one of his poems, we do not now recall which one, was sold for $2,i0o, and copies of his first and second books sold respectively for s2.05o and s1.s25. When we remember that all the latter years of the poets life were spent in poverty, often in real want. 1t looks like the irony of fate to find single book or poem selling for enough to have made him prac- ticaily independent for a year.
 It was almost invariably the fate of ge- nius up to a recent period. Homer begged his bread through Grecian cities, Milton's great works brought him less money than is now frequently paid for a single book by second or third rate writer. compared to those whose towering
 -Anius could not raise them out of the depths of poverty. Most of Poe's life was a struggle for very existence. His latter years, as we have said, were often but slightly removed from starvation. How different might his life and his works have been if he had been appreciated then as he is now. and had been paid as many present-day writers are paid-writers. many of them, who are as far below him in genius and in beauty of expression as can we'll be conceived.
 The life of Poe and his young wife is a pathetic story of the struggle between the finest genius of his day and the hun gry wolf of poverty. We read of 1t now and wonder how the people of his time could have been so blind and deaf and callous as to allow him to live in the very. depths of poverty. and to struggle on against what seemed the inexorable decree of fate and make no effort to help him. There were men of wealth and ge- nius and learning who could have made him secure against want and worry by expending a little of their riches. There were scholars and writers who were in condition to make him independent without any great effort on their part. ..ere they jealous of his wonderful ge- nius Were they afraid that if they as- sisted him the bright light of his fame would eclipse them? It really seems so. | for we know not how else to account for | the neglect and inappreciation which left him to live and die almost a pauper.
 But little more than half a century has elapsed since Edgar Allan Poe gave up the pitiful struggle and laid down the pen. He had fought hardship and want. envy and contumely as long as his finely strung nature could keep up the struggle and whether he died through his own fault or as the result of his hard life and struggles matters not. Within the memory of many now living he gave up the battle and yielded to the inevitable Now. when money can do neither him nor his any good we find almost fabulous prices paid for his books and poems. He and the child-wife would have felt rich with the money that his first copy of Ulalume will bring. and with that money the poor young woman herself might have prolonged her life, or at least passed her last days in ease and comfort. But, ' Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: Tt might have beeni"
 Just as we raise enduring monuments of stone or bronze in honor of those whose lives were made bitter by neglect. abuse and misrepresentation. so does the world of today spend money freely for
 poems written by a genius whose life was embittered by neglect and whose very ! soul was crushed beneath the burden of misconception and lack of appreciation
 The higher the prices paid for Poe's works now the more prominent becomes the story of his life He lived half a century too soon, for now he would be appreciated and paid.