Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/79

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A CENTURY TRIBUTE.
57

uous struggle for bread and fame was suddenly extinguished under circumstances of the deepest pathos.

One by one the malignant slanders which pursued him into the silence of his premature and, for a time, neglected grave, and blackened his memory for years have been met and refuted by indisputable proof laboriously collected and the world has at last been brought to the knowledge of the gracious courtesy and the real excellence and dignity which almost invariably marked his demeanor.

The one infirmity to which all his errors were due has never been denied. Side by side with Burns and Byron he stands in the pitiful sorrow and shame of this terrible misfortune.

But, except when his peculiarly sensitive organization yielded to the destructive influence which robbed him for a time of his intellect and self-control, all trustworthy accounts represent him as a man of exquisite refinement and grace, no less conspicuous for the elegance of his manners than for his almost supramortal eloquence and marvelous intellectual endowments.

The testimony of those who worked with him, who day by day witnessed the constant manifestations of his sweet and uncomplaining patience, his gentle yet proud resignation to the overwhelming disappointments which seemed to crowd around his path and at times well nigh drove him to despair tells the story of the development in him of the edifying virtues which not infrequently find their richest bloom amidst the bitterness of the hope deferred that maketh the heart sick.

Mrs. Osgood who certainly had the amplest opportunity during the most eventful and trying years of his life of