the Day of Judgment would increase his chances of success, so he would! But, he added, he instead hoped to have the first number of it out the next January.
Poe anticipated with excitement a trip to Richmond to gather finances and support, commenting that if everything went as he intended, his final success was certain. He needed to raise funds and subscriptions. But he continued to be hindered by the rumors in the so-called professional press of irregular and immoral habits, questions about his sanity, unfit romantic dalliances, general excessiveness. Enemies, he said, were always at his throat for publishing honest criticisms of their writings, and for having had the great nerve to point out the complete lack of originality in revered authors like Longfellow and Lowell. He feared that the animosities of small men would attack his efforts by painting him as a sot, an unworthy drunk not deserving any public influence.
That is when I asked. I asked plainly, maybe too plainly. Were these at all true, these accusations I had heard for years? Was he, Edgar A. Poe, a drunkard who had given himself over to excess?
He wrote back without the least air of offense or conscious superiority. He vowed to me-me, a practical and presumptuous stranger-that he was wholly abstemious. Some readers might question my ability to judge his truthfulness from afar, but my instincts spoke with unclouded certainty. In my next letter, I replied that I put full confidence in his word. Then, just before sealing my reply, I decided to do better.
I made a proposal. I would bring suit against any false accuser attempting to damage his efforts to launch The Stylus. We had represented the interests of some local periodicals before, providing me with the proper experience. I would do my part to ensure that genius would not be trampled. This would be my duty, just as it was his duty to astonish the world now and then.
"Thank you for your promise about The Stylus," answered Poe in a letter replying to mine. "Can you or will you help me? I have room to say no more. I depend upon you implicitly."
That was shortly before Poe began his lecture tour in Richmond. Emboldened by his response to my offer, I wrote again, pouring out a myriad of questions about his Stylus and where he planned to raise money. I expected he would respond while he was touring, which is why I visited the post office and, when business consumed my time, checked the lists of waiting mail the postmaster regularly inserted in the newspapers.
I had been reading Poe's work more than ever. Particularly after my parents died. Some considered it distasteful that I would read literature that frequently touched on the topic of death. Yet in Poe, while death is not a pleasant subject, it is not forbidden. Nor is it a fixed end. Death is an experience that can be shaped by the living. Theology tells us that spirits live on beyond the body, but Poe believes it.
Peter, of course, had at the time vocally dismissed the idea of our law practice taking up the cause of The Stylus.
"I would sooner cut off my hand than spend my time worrying about magazines of blasted fiction! I would sooner get run down by an omnibus than-" You can see what he was driving at.
You'd probably guess that the real reason Peter objected was because I could not answer his questions about the fees. Poe was regularly reported in the papers as penniless. Why take upon ourselves, Peter argued, what others wouldn't? I pointed out that the source for our payments was obvious: the new journal. Success was guaranteed for it!
What I wanted to say to Peter was "Do you not ever feel you are becoming hackneyed by the lawyer's routine? Forget the fees. Wouldn't you wish to protect something you knew to be great that everyone else sought to desecrate? Wouldn't you wish to be a part of changing something, even if it meant changing yourself?" That line of argument would have accomplished nothing with Peter. When Poe died Peter was quietly satisfied that the matter had ended.
But I was not, not in the least. As I read newspaper articles eulogizing Poe with bitter voices, my desire to protect his name only grew. Something had to be done even more than before. When he was alive, he could defend himself. What enraged me most deeply was that these carping muckworms not only embellished the