Los Angeles herald., 1908-05-03
ARE MADE TO
HONOR POET
Boston, Baltimore, Richmond and
Other Cities Will Join In obserV-
ing Centenary-Something of
His Personal Habits

dresses and commemorative features.
Boston, in particular, although lam
pooned Numerically by the melan-
choy quill driver, who satirized the
lgood old town under the name of Frog
pondium will do it's full share toward
honoring his memory. The celebration
will not be perfunctory, though the
New England capital has been having
q run of centenarieS in the last teW
years. In 1901 arrived Ralph Waldo
Emerson's hundredth anniversary
which was recognized, as all the world
remembers, with proper exercises
wherein the wise from several conti-
nents got together and discussed all
things which they understood and the
MANY things which they failed to un-
derstand in the philosophy of the au-
thor of ."Brahma." Remembrance oil
the natal days of LongfelloN ana HaW-
thorne came on apace ana prOuSht 10
Boston delegations of literary experts
who showed that the good poet of the
children and the simple in heart was
not, after all, so altogether contemplate
in the critics eye, and that the author
of "The Scarlet Letter deserved GER
tainly from his achievements and IN
ternational reputation red-ietter cele-
hration. Only last fall was usnered IN
the centennial anniversary of the blrth
of Whittier, the most New England
OIL Al1eIlOdH pOClo'
Now Poe's Turn
Now Pofss turn is coming. Boston
evidently ought to do something for
him, even though, just as the artist
Whistler persstently denied that ne
was born in Lowell, MASSACHUSETTS, ~
the southern writer was inclined to try
To fool people of his own time INTO
thinking that he was born in Baitl-
more.
IT is. however a we'll established
fact that David Poe, the actor, and his
wife. Elizabeth Arnold, in the pursuit
of what was then very precarlous
profession, lived three years in Boston.
AT the Hub too, Edgar Allan Poe first
turned author. in 1927. publishing
"Tamerlane and Other Poems by
Bostonian." AS for Poe's attacks on
what was in the thirties and forties
one of the undoubted literary centers
of the country there is recalled oliver
Wendell Holmes delightful perslnage
in ",The Professor at the Breakfast
Table"
"After a man begins to attack the
state house, when he gets bitter aDout
the Frog pond. you may be sure there
is not much left in him. Poor Edgar
Poe died in the hospital soon after ne
got into this way of talking; and. SO
sure as you find an unfortunate fellow
reduced to this pass. you had better
begin praying for him and stop lend
ing him money, for he is on his last
legs. Remember poor Edgar! He is
dead and gone; but the state house has
it's cupola fresh- gilded, and the frog
pond has got q fountain that squirts
up a hundred feet into the air ana
glorifies that I1lmble sheet with fine
display of provincial rainbows.
The exact programs in the various
! American cities in accordance with
which the Poe centenary will be cele-
brated have not yet been announced.
In the poets birthplace it is generally
understood that committee of liter
ary men and women will arrange for
commemorative exercises. One of
those likely to have prominent place
in this committee is John Macy, one of
the younger writer's. who in prepara-
sary has written a biographical sketch
of Poe, just published in the Beacon
Biograph Series of the Small Maynard
publishing firm. Mr.. Macy personally
is well known as one of the editorial
staff of the Youths Companion. His
marriage to Miss Sullivan, teacher of
Helen Keller. took place short time
ago. Mr. Macy's qualifications for
writing the memorial biography are
based on several years careful study
of Poe's poetical and prose works,
Valuable to Students
A valuable addition, therefore. to the
already large volume of biographical
material accessible to students of Poe
will prove to have been one of the
contributions growing out OF the cen
tenary. Besides Mr.. Macy's work,
representing a collection of the latest
judgments, any one who wants to be-
come especially familiar with the sub
ject finds. of course. almost limitless
literature at his hand.
There are, for example, the psycho-
pathological studies of the Frenchmen,
plausible but not always very satisfac-
tory. OF such sort is Emile Lon
guieres Edgar Poe: Sa Vie ct Son
Oeuvre." In the same class are such
critical essays as those in Quelques
Ecrlvains Francais by Emile Henne-
quin; the Poe Idesologue," by Camille
Mauclair; and lies Neuroses." by
Nine. Charles Vinoens.
These works, and others by the
Frenchman, Mr. Macy regards as more
fascinating than smsible. He objects
to the impressions left by writings in
which Poe is depicted as perpetually
dipping his pen in IA pot of alcohol. his
fine poems as neurological phenomena,
and himself the spirMuous forefather of
all absinthe poetry.
For although Poe's genius was not
particularly Anglo Saxon but rather
"F'renchy,' he was, accOrdlng TO Mr..
Macy simply one of those nervously
constituted persons who canont 'mbibe
any considerable quantity of stimulant
without being diSaStrously affected.
or alcoholism he was not properly
speaking a victim, for that is disease
resulting from excessive drinking. He
was not strictly dipsomaniac, for such
person has continual and uncon-
trollable thirst for alcohol whether
this is gratified or nor. The enormous
amount of careful. patnstaking literary
work which the alleged habitual drunk
ard did during more than twenty years
of his active career--work of which
every manuscript page, was marvel of
neatness and of correct punctuation
is proof that the debauches were only
occasional, and usually, as the author
himself sometimes admitted, the result
of overwork and poverty. His career
was not one steady progression down.
ward to a drunkard's grave. He might
more nearly be describeh. as victim of
alcoholism in his early twenties than at
any subsequent period. 1t is suggested
that his death in Baltimore was very
likely due to the political habit of ,he
time to coop strangers on the eve OF
election, drug them and send them
! obediently dazed to the polls.
Poe's Personal Habits
This modern way of looking at Poe's
personal habits is not. of course, alto
gether peculiar to Mr.. Macy's study,
though he has rather laid emphasis
upon it, A recent writr I'm the Aca-
\, l,r.