Southern States -- Social life and customs -- 1775-1865 -- Fiction
And yet it must not be thought that the outcast spent his time in sheer
idleness. St. George would often find him tucked away in one of his big
chairs devouring some book he had culled from the old general's library
in the basement--a room adjoining the one occupied by a firm of young
lawyers--Pawson & Pawson (only one brother was alive)--with an entrance
on the side street, it being of “no use to me” St. George had said--“and
the rent will come in handy.” Tales of the sea especially delighted the
young fellow--the old admiral's blood being again in evidence--and so
might have been the mother's fine imagination. It was Defoe and Mungo
Park and Cooke who enchained the boy's attention, as well as many of the
chronicles of the later navigators. But of the current literature of
the day--Longfellow, Margaret Fuller, Hawthorne, and Emerson--no one
appealed to him as did the man Poe. He and St. George had passed many
an hour discussing him. Somehow the bond of sympathy between himself and
the poet had become the stronger. Both had wept bitter tears over the
calamities that had followed an unrequited love.
It was during one of these talks--and the poet was often under
discussion--that St. George had suddenly risen from his chair, lighted
a candle, and had betaken himself to the basement--a place he seldom
visited--from which he brought back a thin, crudely bound, and badly
printed, dust-covered volume bearing the title “Tamerlane:--by a
Bostonian.” This, with a smile he handed to Harry. Some friend had given
him the little book when it was first published and he had forgotten
it was in the house until he noted Harry's interest in the author. Then
again, he wanted to see whether it was the boy's literary taste, never
much in evidence, or his romantic conception of the much-talked-of poet,
which had prompted his intense interest in the man.
“Read these poems, Harry, and tell me who wrote them,” said St. George,
dusting the book with a thrash of his handkerchief and tossing it to the
young fellow.
The boy caught it, skimmed through the thin volume, lingered over one or
two pages, absorbing each line, and replied in a decided and delighted
voice: “The same man who wrote 'The Raven,' of course--there can't be
any doubt of it. I can hear Mr. Horn's voice in every line. Why didn't
you let me have it before?”
“Are you sure?” asked St. George, watching him closely.
“Am I sure?--of course I am! Listen to this:
“'We grew in age--and--love--together, Roaming the forest and the
wild--'
“That's Kate and me, Uncle George,” and he smiled sadly. “And then this
line:
“'I saw no heaven but in her eyes.'
“And then these lines in 'The Raven'--wait--I will read them.” He had
the sheet of paper in his pocket which Richard Horn had read from at the
club, and knew the poem now by heart:
“'Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn, It
shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels call Lenore'--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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