The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-09-14
First Home Here
Was in Gree n
witch Village Near
Graveyard of St.
John s, Which
Harmonized w 18th
His Me la n ch oly
Moods
By ARTHUR B. MAURICE.

TWO or three weeks hence there
will have elapsed the three
score years and ten proclaimed
as the span OF mans lifetime since
Edgar Allan Poe found his death in
Baltimore under circumstances that
have never been fully and satisfactor-
fly explained. Probably the last Of
those persons who saw him in the
life, touched hands with him, so to
speak, has gone from the earth. Yet
hardly "a week passes without some
manifestation that is a tribute to the
vitality of the mans undisputed
genius and his persistently disputed
personality. 1t is like the seven cities
of Greece that claimed the honor Of
having been the birthplace of Homer
and waxed angry over the argument
In the New York in which he lived
q few of his forty years there are to-
day the adherents of certain streets
and structures In these streets who
resent hotly any doubts cast upon
TIER contentious that Poe and his
child wife Virginia, and perhaps his
edoring aunt and mother-in-law. Mrs.
GLENN, there shabbily existed for q
brief month or two. The dispute seems
always to be one of exact locality.
The question whether the poet did or
did not fuddle himself on a certain &C.
casion is of secondary Importance; the
real point at issue is the identity of
the particular tavern in the town of
the fifth decade of the last century in
which he obtained the liquor.
Poe Owed Little to City.
This attitude on the part of poster
ity Is the more extraordinary for the
reason that In the work that Poe left
there is little or nothing that actually
drew inspiration from the city. It is
quite natural that there should be dis
pute about the New York homes of
Washington Irving and warm debate
as to whether the philosopher of SUM-
nyside ever had residence in the So
called Irving house at the corner Of
Irving place and Seventeenth street
To the city Irving laid claim for all
time with his "Diedrich Knickerbocker
History" just as he laid claim to a
section of Westminster county with
bis Legend Of Sleepy Hollow" and to
the thunder of the Catskill Mountains
and the bank of the Hudson at their
feet with rip Van Wrinkle" But with
the exception of THE Mystery of
Marie Roget" in which he took the
New York scenes associated with the
murder of Mary Rogers, the beautiful
cigar girl of the John Anderson shop
at the corner of Broadway and Duane
street. and transferred them to Paris,
there is hardly line in the verse or
rrose of Poe linking the author with
New York. The skies over the town
may at times be "ashen and SOBER"
but beyond that one would have to
travel far to find further suggestion of
the dim lake Of Auber" and the
misty midregion of Weir"
An important contributory factor to
the obscurity surrounding the Poe
in New York is the unre-
of the mans own testimony.
It Is a matter which has nothing to do
with the enduring greatness Of THE
Raven" or "The Fall of the House of
apologists may say. Poe was a liar.
and like Paget NJ. P. of the Kpling
poem, "a fluent liar Herewith" He
lied about his age. the duration of his
stays at the University of Virginia
and West Point. the extent of his
travels in foreign countries. He lied
not wisely, but when the mood to do
so was upon him. which meant every
occasion. For example, he
was invited to deliver a poem before
the Boston Lyceum, and expected to
write a new one for the event. Instead
he read one of his early poems, "Al
Aaraaf." claiming to have printed 1t
in Boston in his eighteenth year. A
newspaper squabble was the result,
Poe defending himself in the Broad
todv Journal. He was sublimely inso-
lent and mendacious. He secuted the
idea that he could possibly write
poem for Boston; the Bostonians
would not have understood a new