acles, to persevere to the end against
opposition and discouragement, and to resist temptations and influences
which he knew would lead him astray from the object which he had at
heart. In this way he lost many a coveted prize when it seemed almost
within his grasp.

The accepted opinion is that Poe's dissipation was his chief fault, as
it was that to which was owing his ruin in the end. But even this was
the effect chiefly of weakness of will. He was not by nature inclined to
evil, but the contrary; and we have seen that, when left to himself and
not exposed to temptation, he was, from all accounts, "sober,
industrious and exemplary in his conduct." But he lacked firmness to
resist the temptation which, more than in the case of most men, assailed
him on every side.

Dr. William Gibbon Carter has told me how, when Poe was in Richmond on
his last visit, and doing his best to remain sober, he would in his
visits and strolls about the city be constantly greeted by friends and
acquaintances with invitations to "take a julep." It was the custom of
the time. Poe, said Dr. Carter, in one morning declined twenty-four such
invitations, but finally yielded; and the consequence was the severe
illness which threatened his life whilst in the city. The effect of one
glass on him, said the Doctor, was that of several on any other man.
Often he was tempted to drink from an amiable reluctance to decline the
offered hospitality.

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 an