A marked peculiarity of Poe's character was the restless discontent which from his sixteenth year took possession of and clung to him through life, and was to him a source of much unhappiness. It was not the discontent of poverty or of ungratified worldly ambition, but the dissatisfaction of a genius which knows itself capable of higher things, from which it is debarred--the desire of the caged eagle for the wind-swept sky and the distant eyrie. He was not satisfied with being a mere writer of stories. He believed that, with a broader scope, he could wield a powerful influence over the literary world and make a record for strength, brilliancy and originality of thought which would render his name famous in other countries as in this. His desire was to set established rules and conventionalities at defiance, and to be fearless, independent, dominant in his assertion of himself and his ideas and convictions. As an editor writing for other editors, he found himself trammeled by what he called their narrowness and timidity. He must be his own master, his own editor; and hence his lifelong dream and desire took form in the conception of the Stylus--that _ignis fatuus_ which he pursued to the last day of his life--uncertain, elusive, yet ever eagerly sought, and always ending in disappointment and bitterness of soul. Time and again it seemed within his grasp, and, as he exultantly proclaimed, "his prospects glorious," when, by his own weakness of will, it was lost to him. Undoubtedly, one of the chief factors in the non-success of Poe's life and its consequent unhappiness was his marriage. Setting aside the poetic imaginings which have been and doubtless will continue to be written concerning this marriage as one of idylic mutual love and "idolatry," the story, in the light of established facts, resolves itself into a very prosaic one. Mr. John Mackenzie, Poe's lifelong and only intimate and confidential friend, never hesitated to say that had Poe been left to himself the idea would never have occurred to him of marrying his little child-cousin. In no transaction of his life was his pitiable weakness more manifest than in this feeble yielding of himself to the dominant will of a mother-in-law. Had Poe remained single or have married another than Virginia, his regard for her would have continued just what it had been in the beginning and what it remained to the end--the affection of a brother or cousin for a sweet and lovable child. But no one can believe that Poe's nature could have found its satisfying in such a marriage; and, in fact, whatsoever sentimental things he may have written concerning it, his whole conduct goes to prove its insincerity.