The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2Poe, Edgar Allan
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American; Short stories
How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me, (for it
could not justly be termed a caricature,) I will not now venture
to describe. I had but one consolation—in the fact that the
imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I
had to endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of
my namesake himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom
the intended effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the
sting he had inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful
of the public applause which the success of his witty endeavours
might have so easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not
feel his design, perceive its accomplishment, and participate in
his sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I could not
resolve. Perhaps the gradation of his copy rendered it not so
readily perceptible; or, more possibly, I owed my security to the
master air of the copyist, who, disdaining the letter, (which in
a painting is all the obtuse can see,) gave but the full spirit
of his original for my individual contemplation and chagrin.
I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of
patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent
officious interference with my will. This interference often took
the ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but
hinted or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which
gained strength as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let
me do him the simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no
occasion when the suggestions of my rival were on the side of
those errors or follies so usual to his immature age and seeming
inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if not his general
talents and worldly wisdom, was far keener than my own; and that
I might, to-day, have been a better, and thus a happier man, had
I less frequently rejected the counsels embodied in those meaning
whispers which I then but too cordially hated and too bitterly
despised.
As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme under his
distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and more openly
what I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in
the first years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings in
regard to him might have been easily ripened into friendship;
but, in the latter months of my residence at the academy,
although the intrusion of his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt,
in some measure, abated, my sentiments, in nearly similar
proportion, partook very much of positive hatred. Upon one
occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards avoided, or made a
show of avoiding me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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