Even then he had written much, not only in prose but verse also — had written great quantities of the latter before his guardian abandoned him. […]
Before Mr. Poe came to New York, he traveled much, both at home and abroad; he had been partially educated at West Point, but his mind was neither mathematical, military, nor subordinate to soldierly discipline, as might have been conceived, and for this cause his relation therewith was dissolved, though he always retained the air inseparable from military training. It was said he made his way to Russia, and got into some difficulty there; be that as it may, he could not have sunk himself very low, for his looks and manner bore not the shadow of a trace of any irregularity.
If he did make the mistakes imputed to him, I can only say that Edgar Poe was right royally organized, when he could rise so above every vestige of disorder, as the lion shakes the clew from his mane.
While in Richmond he married his own cousin, and she a child of fourteen. Here was another error. But let us draw the vail over it, for it produced for him in the person of his aunt, and now mother-in-law, Mrs. Clem, one devoted, untiring, long-suffering friend, without whom his career would have been even sadder than it was.
It must have been in 1842 that Poe first came to reside permanently in New York. He was at once admitted into its literary circles, where his superior address and remarkable conversational powers at once attracted attention. Then there was more prestige attached to literature than at present exists. The field is now so over-filled, and the persons of marked genius so comparatively few, that the desire for companionship with literary persons is much less.
