The poet's activities were henceforth con centrated on the task of supporting himself with his pen—a task which was rendered exceedingly difficult, not by lack of opportunities or of friend., but by irregularities of life and a restive, sensitive. and capricious temperament. In Bal timore, where he next endeavored to secure a foothold, he found friends and made his first popular success by winning a prize of $100 of fered by The Saturday Visitor, a monthly lit erary journal, for the best prose story. The story selected by the judges was "A Manuscript Found in a Bottle." Poe was then living with his fa ther's widowed sister. Clemm, whose ter Virginia, then eleven years old, he married two years later. In the meantime Mr. Allan had died without any recognition of his adopted son in hi, will, and the poet was at last compelled to face life with such resources as nature had given him. These were ample if they had been wisely directed and husbanded. He had proved him self a master of lyrical poetry and of the short story, and he was beginning to write criticism of a new order in America. He was also drinking too often and too freely, and his abnormally sen sitive nervous organization was seriously affected and finally shattered by an indulgence which to men of more vigorous physique would have been of slight physical importance. The uncertainty of his life, the pronounced strain of melancholy in his temperament, the brooding intensity of his imagination, the weakness of his will, and the terrible strain of his wife's long illness contrib uted to make him the victim of a habit against which he fought at times with desperate courage, and for long periods with success. He was never, except for short periods, what is known as a dissipated man: hut strong drink of any kind was a poison to him and the least indulgence prostrated him.
From Baltimore Poe removed to Richmond, which he always regarded as his home and where he found congenial and helpful friends. As edi tor of The Southern Literary Messenger he se cured the happiest conditions which he was to know. Ile was an indefatigable worker, pro ducing stories. poems. and critiques with ease, and at this time with evident pleasure. To this period belong a number of his most characterktic tales of fantasy: "Berenice," "The Fall of the House of Usher." "Ligeia," "Elconora," "The _Masque of the Red Death." 'Flee tales were not without forerunners in other literatures, but they combined a quality of a skill in taking posses.ion of the imagination of the read er, and a perfection of form which have given them a place by themselves in the literature of the world. They close in upon the mind, 1.3 a subtle use of suggestion and repetition. until a purely phantasmal world become, real and abnor mal figures take on the semblance of life. The skill with which the transition from the actual to the phantasmal is effected is the supreme triumph of Poe's art in fiction. The men and women who appear in these tales are all phan toms, without warmth, pas.ion, character; they,
and the realm in which they move, are stamped with unreality. Poe's great limitation lies in the narrownes. of his range and the lack of deep-rooted vitality in the of his imagination. He deals habitually with abnor mal a.pect. of life and phases of experience. His land.capes, character., incident. are all in the realm of fantasy. These characteristics place him in the ranks of the modern Decadent., whom he has deeply influenced ; but he differ; widely from the men who have followed his lead in the absolute purity of his thought and imagi nation.
In 1S35 literature of high quality was being produced in the United States. but public taste was uneducated, and crude. sentimental. and cheap fiction was widely read. In the columns of The Southern Literary Messenger Poe began to print critiei.m of a kind and quality which was new to most American readers. He broke away entirely from the trammels of provin cialism in taste and judgment. and applied to current writing the standard. of the literature of the world. His handling of "Norman Leslie," a popular novel of the day, arrested attention by reason of its vigor, its sarcasm, its disclosure of a genuine gift for analysis and appraisement of literary values. The critic. it was evident. was not averse to the use of the keenest weapons, but used them for high purposes. He was bent on exposing literary pretension and breaking the influence of mediocrity in American letters, and he rendered a genuine service to sound taste and therefore to the development of good literature by his critical work. He lacked the spiritual insight of critics of the highest class, but lie had wide acquaintance with the best in literature, rare power of analysis. and a very delicate sense of form. Above all. he was largely free from pro vineial prejudices and capable of judging a work of art on its merits. He recognized the genius of Hawthorne at the very start : he was quick to set its full value on Tennyson's early verse: he discerned the significance of Bryant, Lowell, and Cooper. His occasional failure to compre hend the spirit and method of a contemporary was most strikingly shown in his unfortunate at tack on Longfellow, whom he accused of plagiar izing.
Poe had many opportunities, hut his tempera ment made it impossible to establish comfortable and permanent working, relations. In 1837. when a disastrous financial panic was at its height, he arrived in New York with very ambitious pur poses, but with no resources. "Th.. Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," published the following year, added nothing to his reputation and little to his income. The autumn of 1838 found Poe in Philadelphia, where he wrote two of his most characterist ic pieces, "Silence" and "The Haunted Palace." The poem shows an ethical feeling which no other work from the same hand reveals. Two volumes made up of stories and sketches appeared in 1839, and container] some of the most original work which America has produced.