The New York herald., 1922-03-12
Poe's Proper Shrine.
1t Should Be Established in New
York, Not In Richmond.


emily Poe's five cities. Boston. Richmond.
Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York
are at it.again or are about to go at 1t.
A tablet at the northwestern corner OF
Broadway and Eighty-fourth street de-
scribing that as the site of the genesis OF
The Raven" the appearance of lodg-
ment In our University Heights Hall OF
Fame-Walhaila, Now much lovelier a
name and q deluge Of circulars from
recent creation. the Poe shrine at
Richmond. concur to direct our attention
to the subject.
Except that Poe was fortuitously born
In Boston and that he fortuitously died
IN Baltimore 1t is not eazY to perceive
what those two cities have to brag about
In regard to Poe. Here In New York
city. where the New York Shakespeare
Society traces six, some say seven. sep
arate residences to Poe. all more or less
associated with that ''unmerciful dis
aster which followed fast and followed
faster until it eliminated in the trag-
edy OF Fordham. seems the true Poe
shrine. In Richmond, where he lived his
whole happy boyhood and youth, petted
Of doting adopted parents, there is scant
II any suggestion of his adult yicissi-
tudes and achievements. And this very
shrine is borrowing of that old stone
cottage. almost hovel, on lower Main
street that did duty as a Washington :
headquarters in Richmond local guide
books for so many years but which ha 9
no connection whatever with Poe or the
Allans.
No city In the world has paid such
magnificent tribute to the memory of
one of its citizens who was simply a
poet as New York city has paid to the
memory Of Edgar Allan Poe. Not
Shakespeare himself in the city where
he toiled and triumphed, London, has
such visible distinction. Within ~pacious
and splendid pleasance In the midst OF
a we'll ordered suburban precinct. Poe
Park in The Bronx, is perpetually main
tanned for the pilgrimage OF Poe lovers
the cottage-not a cottage like that at
Stratford- d-on-Ayon which one can be-
lieve in II ones faith need no bolster OF
fact-but the yeritable cottage which
he last lived in, where he starved on
dinners of herbs. where his poor little
wife froze to her death. Where one to-
day can tread the very floors he trod.
A quarter Of a million dollars the city
OF New York thought not too much to
pay to perpetuate the fame Of its first
poet, Edgar Allan Poe
As to this latest tablet which the en-
thusiasm of the New York Shakespeare
Society has placed in commemoration Of
ha
assessment OF the evidence seems to con
firm the proceeds OF its enthusiasm
The Brennan house-"mansion" it is
called on the tablet, and let it go at
that-was certainly razed by the con-
tractors for cutting through West
Eighty-fourth street to the river, as ap-
pears from documents preserved at Co
lumbia University authoritative of the
Poe mantelpiece in the Carpenter IL
brary. These prove that the old house
stood on the line of Eighty-fourth street
w. F. Gill. who wrote his Life of Poe
while this old house still stood-he gives
a drawing Of It in his book--says that
its site was "a few hundred feet west
or the Bloomingdale road" And the
-Bloomingdale road is now broadway.
Every life Of Poe-IGill's, Woodberry S
and all the rest--concedes that 1.-The
Raven" was produced as the world
has 1t to-day in an upper room OF this
old house. The Brennan Of Poe's date
was Patrick, father Of the late Commis-
sioner Thomas L. Bremen, whose sister.
Martha Brennan. remembered to have
heard Poe himself road '"The Raven 70
her mother Mrs. Mary Brennan, in that
very room and to have held the manu-
script OF 1t In her hand, as the said
Columbia University documents aver.
The late James Huneker claimed 10
be sure to know the house in Philadel-
phia where Poe wrote ''The Raven.
Dr. Morgan does not quarrel with this
but brings testimony that that raven
was an owl and deprecates the hugger
mugger that should result from attempts
to consider too curiously and precisely
the genesis of masterpiece Of poetry.
No doubt Poe in Philadelphia may have
conceived the never fitting bird on the
pallid bust Of Pallas Minervai or even
when the Rev. DR.. Hawks and 'Horse-
shoe" Robinson induced Poe to como TO
New York--where he lived in the iowly
Carmine street domicile-Poe might
have been dreaming of this Eaunt and
ominous Bird of Yore. Many Poe mi
grations thereafter to Philadelphia and
Graham Magdsine and finally to New
York city and fame! For dt was on our
streets that he was pointed out as the
man that wrote THE Raven" and two
worlds began to kpow him all at once.
\ Retrospective scrutiny OF Poe's New
York city life must dispel the persistin z
refrain to almost every jeremiad on Poe
in New York city that he was under
paid. He was not. When mere hack
writer even he was paid the wages Of a
hack writer. And when he became the
foremost literary man in America he
was paid the wages OF the foremost 1T
erary man accordingly. IL Poe was
poorly paid It was because literature
and not Edgar Allan Poo was poorly
paid at that date. and yet not literature
per Sc but American literature. Charles
Dickens, who came over hero TO libe
and viiify us, was swamped with thou
sands of our dollars while Poe was sell
ing his best work for pennies.
Still Poe until that unlucky windfalI
which gave him dimes enough to move
70 the Fordham cottage. away from
every friend. every employer and every
employment. where the nearest post
ofYice even was ~ White Plains. was
not actually In want OF bread.
IL shrines are associated with the
misfortunes and miseries OF poets rathet
81 ~ rA to ut Il