Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-12-18
THE HASKIN LETTER
WHERE POE LIVED.
BY Frederic j. Hsskin.

The picturesque little wooden cot
tage here in which Edgar Allen Poe
lived for four years and where his
wife. Virginia Glenn Poe, died of tu-
berculosis, complicated by cold and
starvation. is in danger of going TO
ruin for lack of a thousand or SO
dollars a year to keep it in repair
and pay for the services of a Gus
todian.
A number of persons visit the
place every day. but most of them
do not deem 1t necessary to con-
tribute anything to its upkeep. The
cottage stands in a small park,
which has been set aside by the city
for the purpose and the city also
furnishes fuel and gas but hat Is
all. The cottage is In the care Of
a committee of the Bronx Society
of Arts and Sciences. which 10Y
appeals to the American public for
aid in maintaining this cottage as
a memorial to one of the greatest
of American writer's, one of the
very few who achieved a world rep
utation and helped to make Europe
aware that America can produce
ute to the cause, send your check to
W.. Js oNtlAiGAlCs sISAtLdi VI ~
committee at 220 East 1SSth street.
New York city.
Americans certainly ought to be
willing to maintain a memorial to
Poe. And not for the sentimental
reason, which has been put forward
that he was neglected and starved
in his lifetime. You a hardly
make any adequate reparation- for
that now. But for the reason hat
Poe's work and personality have
interested almost every American
who ever went to school. He is
one of the very few American clas-
sizes that have made and kept places
In the popular imagination. Who
nowadays reads Hawthorne? How
many Americans of the rising gen.
cratic W. read Emerson. unless
under compulsion in a class room?
A good many of them have had to
read Bryant's Thanatopsis in school
and a plebiscite would show that
about one in a million ever reads
it again afterwards. 1t is the same
with Longfellow. You may have re-
cited his Excelsior" at the COM
mencement exercises OF the high
school in your home town. hut you
have not bothered him much since.
Thoreau you have jus theard of,
and reading James Russell Lowell
Is not your idea of indoor sport.
The Appeal Of Poe.
Poe is probably not your regular
flreside companion either, for hat
matter. Even he cannot compete
with a good baseball story in the
sporting section or with a stack of
popular magazines on a rainy win
ter evening. But you have some
time read THE Murders in the Blue
Morgue," and THE Fall of the
House of Usher" and they have re-
lily thrilled you. No one could
read The Fall of the House of
Usher" without a creepy feeling
1t has been the zoe lurid and thrill
ing interlude in the boredom of
many a high school course in
American literature, and has been
the cause Of burning much mid
night electricity by wide-eyed
youths who were afraid to put out
the light after reading that incom-
parable masterpiece of horror.
And then. too. Poe's personality
takes hold Of the imagination. Most
Of u writer's were such painfully
respectable fellows. Longfellow
and Hawthorne and Whittier and
Bryant and all the rest OF them
were exemplary fellows, who raised
families held regular joys and led
generally monotonous and uninter-
esting lives. Not So, Poe. He
drank whiskey and took dope. He
wandered in a yards. staring
at the moon and tearing his poetic
locks. He communed with imagi-
rary ravens and with ghosts and
demons. He had low affairs that
were incomparabiy poetic. senti-
mental and tragic. He was, in a
word. the popular ideal of what a
genius should be. We think of
genius as something wild-eyed and
irresponsible. We think of it as
essentially miserable. Its hair
should be rather long and its
clothes rather seedy. 1t should
more exotic these are the better
they fit the part. A genius should
be a terror to the ladies. and in
his owe affairs he should dig up his
agonized soul and exhibit it for the
ediacation of all and sundry.
Poe Played the Part.
Poe did all of these things with
a certain dignity and dash. He full
filled the popular idea of genius so
we'll that for a long time he was a
subject for Sunday spreads in the
newspapers, and more lies have
been told about him before and
since he died than were ever told
about any other American, barr
ing perhaps a few candidates for
the Presidency. HIS appeal to the
general imagination is so great that
quite recently a play was written
about him. was accepted by a
Broadway manager. and will proba-
bly, be produced before long. Poe
has a real place in the American
popular Mind. He is n figure in
our national letters of whom, as a
people. we are really a And
for that reason his memory Should
by every possible means be kept
alive, A national literature which
most of the nation neither knows
nor cares anything about Is not re-
ally a national literature at all.
But Poe. together with Mark Twain
and one or two others. forms the
nucleus of a national literature of
which the nation is aware.
OF course the popular idea of Poe
Is a mixture of misinformaIon and
misunderstanding. He was misera-
bile. not because he was a genius.
but because he was a genius born
In a country whichhad little use or
appreciation for him. He could not
hnd V o to talk with who un-
der stood him. nor anyone to guide
his development and encourage
him.
AS he went along in life he be-
came more and more bitter and self
conferred. He had few friends. and
turned for companionship almost
entirely to soft-hearted women. who
sramped him in sticky sympathy
without in the least understanding
him. making him a hopeless senti-