Page 42 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

alone or with only a dog, and he delighted to fancy that he was the very
first white person to penetrate some lonely glen or ravine.

He was also something of an artist, and decorated his rooms with charcoal

sketches. He and a classmate bought a volume of Byron with steel
engravings in it. The next time his friend went to see Poe he found him
copying one of these on the ceiling, and he continued this until he had

covered the whole of the walls with figures that were said to be artistic and
striking.

CHAPTER V

FORTUNE CHANGES

At the age of eighteen there came a change in Poe’s life. Until then he had
been a petted child in a wealthy family. Mr. Allan did not have that

affection for him which Mrs. Allan had. He did not understand the boy’s
peculiar and erratic nature, and was particularly displeased when he found
that Edgar had run into debt at college. There was an angry scene between

the two, and Edgar was told that he must leave the university and go into
the counting-room. It appears that he made some attempt to tie himself

down to figures and accounts and business routine; but as he had not been
brought up to this kind of life, he soon tired of it, and decided to go into the
world to seek his own fortune. He went to Boston, where he published a

volume of poetry.

In the preface to this volume, Poe says that the poems were written before
he was fourteen. Though this may not be strictly true, there is little doubt
that some of them were. While he was still at school he had collected

enough of his poems to make a volume, and Mr. Allan had taken them up
to the master of the English and Classical School to get his advice about

publishing them. This gentleman advised against it on the ground that it
would make Edgar conceited,--a fault from which he was already suffering.
As soon as he was free to do as he pleased, therefore, it was natural that he

should rewrite his poems and publish them.