Imp: Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe
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Imp:
Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold In the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe
Douglas Vincent Wesselmann
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
A Note From The Editor
1. July 12, 1857 - A Note For The Reader -
2. September ?, 1849 - A Letter -
3. September 24, 1849 11:00 p.m. - The Avenues to Death are Numerous and Strange -
4. September 25, 1849 10:00 a.m. - In Consideration of the Impulses of the Human Soul -
5. September 28, 1849 1:30 p.m. - An Innate and Primitive Principle of Human Action -
6. September 28, 1849 2:30 p.m. - That Something, Which I Term Perverseness -
7. September 28, 1849 4:15 p.m. - The Animation of the Imp -
8. September 28, 1849 6:35 p.m. - The Essence of Phrenological Combativeness -
9. September 28, 1849 8:10 p.m. - The Invention of a Pitiable Penny-a-Liner -
10. September 28, 1849 9:30 p.m. - The Tomb of Saranella -
11. September 28, 1849 10:45 p.m. - Bitten by the Tarantula -
12. September 29, 1849 1:00 a.m. - No One Will Deny the Propensity in Question -
13. September 29, 1849 10:00 a.m. - The Angel of the Odd May Intervene -
14. September 29, 1849 2:15 p.m. - To Know Nothing is to Know All -
15. September 29, 1849 5:00 p.m. - A Thousand Injuries and a Single Insult -
16. September 29, 1849 8:45 p.m. - Gods and the Rumor of Gods -
17. September 29, 1849 11:30 p.m. - The Awful Disclosures of Molly Monk -
18. September 30, 1849 12:25 a.m. - Evil is a Consequence of Good -
19. September 30, 1849 3:15 a.m. - Method is the Soul of Business -
20. September 30, 1849 4:05 a.m. - Much of Madness and More of Sin -
21. September 30, 1849 5:20 a.m. - The Throwing Down of Jezebel -
22. September 30, 1849 6:55 a.m. - Spirits in Wing, and Angels to the View -
23. September 30, 1849 9:30 a.m. - She Stands Without the Door -
24. September 30, 1849 12:30 p.m. - The Speculations of the Sophist -
25. September 30, 1849 3:30 p.m. - The Words Of Solomon Don Dunce -
26. September 30, 1849 7:10 p.m. - The Gaily Jeweled Dead -
27. September 30, 1849 8:30 p.m. - He Pervades All by Nature of His Intentness -
28. October 1, 1849 12:01 a.m. - The Gods Bear in Kings What They Abhor in Rascals -
29. October 1, 1849 8:10 a.m. - A Deficiency of Imagination in the Severe Precincts of Truth -
30. October 1, 1849 9:15 p.m. - This is Indeed Life Itself -
31. October 1, 1849 11:15 p.m. - The Rays of Numerous Candles -
32. October 2, 1849 4:30 a.m. - Tomorrow I Shall be Fetterless -
33. October 2, 1849 10:25 a.m. - Nothing There is Motionless -
34. October 2 & 3, 1849 ? a.m. / p.m. - A Vivid Effect Upon My Disordered Imagination -
35. October 3, 1849 2:10 a.m. - A Demon in My View -
36. October 3, 1849 3:30 a.m. - Deep Into That Darkness Peering -
37. October 3, 1849 4:35 a.m. - A Flambeau to the Flaxen Coat -
38. October 3, 1849 5:45 a.m. - Leave No Black Plume as a Token -
39. October 3, 1849 10:30 a.m. - Mother of God, Be With Me Still -
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Douglas Vincent Wesselmann
Copyright © 2015 by Douglas Vincent Wesselmann
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 978-1-4951-8518-2
Created with Vellum
For Kent;
We lived this one together
“I am come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is profound—does not spring from disease of thought—from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
“The Imp of the Perverse” Edgar Allan Poe
A Note From The Editor
Edgar Allan Poe left Richmond, Virginia, on September 27th of 1849, bound via steamship for Baltimore, where he was to catch a train north to Philadelphia and then on to New York City. He never arrived at his final destination. Found shabbily dressed and incoherent in a Baltimore gutter on October 3rd, he was taken to the city’s Washington College Hospital, where he died, still delirious, on October 7th. Nothing whatsoever was known of his activities in the period from his boarding of the boat in Richmond until his discovery nearly a week later. Those six missing days have remained one of the most intriguing of all the unsolved mysteries in literary history.
In September of 2005, a musty, leather folio was located at the bottom of a misplaced carton stacked in the archives of the University of Iowa’s Poe collection. This folio, misplaced among the papers of noted Poe scholar Thomas Mabbot, contained several handwritten journals, signed and dated by Mr. Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1815-1857), Poe’s literary executor. These are the contents of those journals: A complete telling of the facts related to the last, lost week in the life and death of Edgar Allan Poe.
-A.D.
Chapter 1
July 12, 1857 - A Note For The Reader -
There are certain areas of study that tempt our intellects, but which are too entirely spiritually dangerous for the wise man to pursue. Thus, I have kept this story as the closest of secrets. Only now, as my death approaches, do I surrender this manuscript into other hands – scholarly hands, trusting that care will be taken to shield it from the unprepared eye.
My soul’s course has long been set, and I pray God will forgive me for loosing this truth on any unsuspecting soul. I ask only that those who examine my words understand that all the depravity, horror, and perversity contained in this telling are meant as a caution and a warning. If there is terror and damnation, let it be known that the evil contained here is always to be judged as, in essence, a dark reflection of divine light.
It was neither my intention nor my desire to be witness to the black events of that week in Baltimore. Indeed, none are even aware of my presence during the disturbing series of calamities that occurred that early autumn. My friend’s condition compelled me to keep all these matters confidential. As a friend I have kept to this course – until now. I pray he will forgive me this need, for it is just that. As I feel death approach, I am compelled to let loose this weight that has become an anchor chained to my immortal spirit. I must break those links so that I am free of my grievous failures and my mortal sins.
This is the truth of the burdensome decision that I made that terrible day with the smell of burnt flesh in my nose. I pledged myself to keep all of these tragic events beyond the reach of coarse intellects. I swore that I would never reveal this chronicle of a damned society, a fallen world, a waking nightmare that even now, years later, I still scarce believe happened in reality.
So I implore your forgiveness for the crude, even shocking nature of this narrative. Stop now if your nature is delicate or your spiritua
l condition is unsteady. The dead and the undead -- the murdered and the dismembered – the smell of opium and the stench of alcohol – all of these degradations and hellish tragedies that plague the underbelly of our civilization await you. I will endeavor to relate the case dispassionately. If I lose sight of the ultimate order of God’s creation and His unknown purposes, know that I, too, was scarred by these occurrences. Murder echoes through a man’s life. I am, in the end, as base as any man, and prone to self-justifications.
Finally, I beg for the blessing of my poor friend, who has passed from this plane into eternity. I undertook to deflect all from the nature of these, his final days. I marked him with one sin in order to distract those who would destroy his legacy should they discover the true nature of the circumstances that surrounded his death.
Now, with his immortality assured and my decline into obscurity ordained, I remove these pages from the safe where I have kept them these last eight years. I consign them to you and your interested associates. Judge for yourself if he is to be condemned or celebrated. Weigh the factors of the case and decide.
This is the truth of it -- the disturbing events of that week in Baltimore – and the death of my friend, Edgar Allan Poe, as told by his final companion, his literary executor, his failed assassin, myself –
– Rufus W. Griswold
Chapter 2
September ?, 1849 - A Letter -
Editor’s Note:
The following letter was found loosely inserted into Griswold’s portfolio. It is handwritten in what accredited experts verify is surely the hand of Edgar Allan Poe. The conservator has been unable to ascertain the exact date the note was posted as a result of the condition of the document. Written on inexpensive rag-paper, the letter has numerous folds and creases, perhaps as a result of being crumpled by a human hand and tossed aside. There are light brown stains and discolorations of indeterminate origin. In addition, one corner of the sheet is burnt, as if the recipient or other parties unknown began to burn the missive.
Richmond, Virginia
September ?, [1849]
Dear Griswold,
I have given this note to Mr. L. who has pledged to see that it reaches you with dispatch. Some disturbing events have occurred that I feel require your personal attention. Having made some recent discoveries, which I think would be unwise to elaborate upon here in an uncertain post, I propose that we meet in a week’s time at Baltimore. I must impress upon you with all urgency that these latest occurrences, which have placed my life in danger, and these newly uncovered facts, which threaten your reputation, make such a rendezvous absolutely imperative. In addition, I have ascertained the whereabouts of a certain “Preacher” and hope to gather more information within the next few hours. Ever in mind of the disdain that you have for me personally and the unpleasant prospect such a journey may be to your sensibilities, I must insist that you do not dismiss my request without consideration. I shall arrive in Maryland on the 28th, or such at this date is my intention. Do not fail me. For in God’s name I know, Sir. I know what the sepulcher contained.
Truly Yours,
Edgar A. Poe
Chapter 3
September 24, 1849 11:00 p.m. - The Avenues to Death are Numerous and Strange -
I dreamt of death.
Perhaps it was the dessert or the dyspeptic truffe I had consumed before bed. The sugars and the earths that insinuated themselves into my eager tongue, mixed with the oak of the brandy, produced some primitive brew that mimicked the excitement of a sow’s nose in the woods. I cannot say with any certainty that I, or any man, can understand the origins of such terrors of sleep. I only know that the torte was over-rich, that a silver fork brought the fertile truffle to my lips, and that the second snifter of Armagnac brought me, disquieted and alone, to my bed. I only theorize that thus stimulated, my tumescent imagination fed by the potion led me to the crypt.
I was suffocating. There was no air in my tomb. Pushing and clawing in desperation, I struggled to find some escape from the cold marble sarcophagus that surrounded me. All was darkness as I found no purchase, no lever, no release – only paralysis and impotence against the weight above me,
I felt my soul slipping away from me. Like a forbidden caress, my immortal spirit moved within my flesh and rippled like pleasure from the base of my spine to become a spasm at the base of my brain. In waves, it repeated its infinite pulsations until, with a shudder, that divine spark emerged from my head. I saw a dragon uncurling newborn from a golden egg in front of my eyes, and my earthly vision faded to nothingness in the glory of the release.
Then it seemed to me in my wonder that I became the dragon, and my corruptible body was left behind. I flowed through stone and soil to the dream world above – a moment of freedom in the imagined air of life… a sudden moment… a space where a single heartbeat might have fit. How long is a dream? How many nights dance in a single blink of the drunken eye?
A raven flew through the air and transformed into a man. Dressed in black he ran from some unseen danger. A blow from the shadows and his neck snapped. A man bound in chains rushed to his side and kneeling over the broken body touched it with a single finger. The raven-man arose, alive again. I recognized his amazed face.
“Poe?” I said.
“Yes,” he replied in his careful voice. A single word from him seemed a poem.
“You are alive?”
“As any man may be in a dream.”
I heard a scream in the distance – and another, closer – approaching.
“Help me,” I begged him.
“Help you?”
“She pursues me,” I said.
“No. You are wrong. She pursues me.” Poe’s face was grim. “And you have led her here.”
There was yet another scream, as if heaven itself had been torn by a sword of pure lightning. A naked girl with olive skin materialized in the flash. In her smooth young hands she held a long, golden needle.
“Save me.” Poe said. There was no emotion in his words. They were dead. “Save me,” he said again.
When I awoke, the rain was driving against my window with force. There was an autumn storm over Manhattan. The panes of glass chittered with each gust. My breathing matched the raggedness of the wind. I dismissed the dream. As I said, perhaps it was just the dyspeptic truffe. God’s prophets are all long dead.
And then she came to call.
Chapter 4
September 25, 1849 10:00 a.m. - In Consideration of the Impulses of the Human Soul -
I am a man of God. Though my career as a Baptist minister was a short and perhaps a misguided vocation, still I look upon my time spent studying the scriptures and the holy mysteries as an important part of the Divine plan for my life. Thus grounded in dogma, I once considered that I was of sufficient fiber to resist the poisons of degradation so insidiously hidden in the arts of man.
I had begun that day in my normal fashion, sipping on a steaming cup of Blackthorne tea, reading from my Bible. My wife’s empty Biedermeier wing chair facing me, I recall that I felt an odd discomfort as I read the Psalm.
“…Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord:
Keep watch over the door of my lips.
Do not turn my heart to any evil,
To busy myself with wicked deeds,
In company with those who work iniquity.
Do not let me eat of their delicacies…”
Why the inspired words of King David should, on that morning, have brought such an unaccustomed unease, I do not know. Was it the absence of my dear mate? No, for she had been beyond my help past eighteen months and, that morning at least, I imagined my mind was at peace with her absence. In truth, I was grateful for the end of her suffering and for the new freedom of my literary pursuits. Even in bitterness, God finds the sweet.
As I read the psalmist’s verses, the woman was already nearing my front steps. Did I hear the clicking of her wooden heels? Did some vertiginous scent of the future reach my nostrils? Was she sent or comp
elled by delusion? Now, I look back and ask these questions. I have no answers. I only know that a strange destiny was gathering about me as I sipped my tea and read my scriptures.
The bell at the front of the house rang. I paid it no attention. Scipio, my freedman servant would answer its summons. Scipio’s steps were inaudible. Even had I listened for them, I would not have sensed him moving from the cupboard to the vestibule.
From time to time, I had thought it was some primitive skill of the Negro -- a bewitchment that the race possessed that aided them in their pagan jungles – or a stealthiness imparted to them befitting their place in creation. There were several upsetting incidents where I would look up from my writing only to be grievously startled by Scipio’s presence in my study. For an instant, I would sense an almost predatory spark in his eyes, then they would dull until only the natural deference and servility remained. I had determined to buy him some proper hard-soled shoes so that I might not be discomfited again by his sudden manifestations. That task was, as of that date, still unattended.
I did not hear the steps of my servant. I paid it no attention. The bell had rung, and the door had been answered. I went on with my meditations. I have a vague recollection of my wife’s perfume in the air. Across the back of her chair was her paisley shawl. It was soaked in her fragrances. Where once I had been irritated by her vanity and her wasteful spending on such trifles as scents and eau de colognes, at that moment, I found myself reveling in the gentle bouquet of her presence. I closed my eyes, seeking her touch.