to have deprived her . . . . as the discoverer and the founder of symbolism."[1]
The revived hope of a publication of his own, The Stylus, was again leading Poe, and to further this he gave "Eureka," as a lecture in New York. Though aided by his ever faithful friend, N. P. Willis, the effort was a failure; those who came to hear it listened spellbound for three hours. "Poe appeared inspired, . . . . his eyes seemed to glow like those of his own 'Raven,'" but the audience consisted of sixty persons instead of the several hundred expected. "Eureka" was published by Putnam in 1848, the small edition of five hundred copies proving more than adequate for the demand.
In the summer of this year, while on a brief visit to Mrs. Shew, the first two stanzas of "The Bells" were written—"The silver bells" and "The heavy iron bells." Immediately after finishing them Poe fell into a deep sleep that lasted twelve hours, alarming his hostess, who called in a neighboring physician. He confirmed her opinion, formed from her own medical education, of the permanent injury to the brain with which Poe was suffering, and which would not permit him to use stimulants or tonics without producing insanity.
Poe's fateful love for Mrs. Whitman came like a meteor of destruction in this autumn of 1848, further unsettling the worn and nervous man. Mrs. Whitman in a letter to William F. Gill, of London, dated August, 1873, records: "No such scene as that described by Dr. Griswold ever transpired in my presence. No one, certainly,
- ↑ Edmund Gosse: The Contemporary Review. February, 1909.
