The Portable Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [3]
At fourteen Poe turned to Jane Stith Stanard, the mother of his companion, for emotional comfort and understanding, later idealizing her in his poem “To Helen” after her sudden derangement and untimely death in 1824. Her loss intensified his own reckless impulsiveness: Not long afterward, he swam six miles in the James River against an incoming tide under a scorching sun to prove his indomitability. Hints of estrangement from his foster father lurk in Allan’s comment of 1824 that Poe “does nothing & seems quite miserable, sulky, and ill-tempered to all the family.” His lack of “affection” and “gratitude” galled Allan in light of the “care and kindness” he allegedly received. Poe fell into line—literally—when General Lafayette visited Richmond in 1824 during his American tour; the boy paraded with the junior militia that formed an honor guard for the Revolutionary hero who had known his late grandfather, Major David Poe of Baltimore. But the moodiness Allan noted was soon exacerbated by emerging romantic interests. For several years Poe had scribbled poems to local girls, and most had been bantering in tone until he met Sarah Elmira Royster in the summer of 1825. She lived opposite Moldavia, the Richmond mansion John Allan had bought that year with a huge inheritance left by an uncle, and she later recalled Poe as a “beautiful boy” with a “sad” manner who occasionally came calling with verses in hand. The two developed a mutual fondness, spoke of marriage, and remained close until Poe left Richmond to enroll in the University of Virginia early the following year.
Classes at Mr. Jefferson’s university brought Poe in contact with some of the great minds of the young republic. The author of the Declaration was (until his death on July 4 of that year) very much an intellectual presence in Charlottesville, where he shaped the curriculum; the faculty included former presidents Madison and Monroe, who examined Poe in Latin and Greek. But the students were a brawling, hot-tempered lot who sometimes settled personal differences by dueling, and Poe (lacking sufficient funds from Allan) took to gambling and drinking. He also wrote poems, concocted stories, and covered the walls of his room with charcoal sketches; a classmate described him as “excitable & restless, at times wayward, melancholic, and morose.” Examinations intimidated him, but he performed well, excelling in “ancient languages” and French. By the end of the year, however, Poe was in deep trouble: summoned to testify about student gambling, he denied involvement but privately begged Allan to cover his losses. In late December, Allan journeyed to Charlottesville, settled the debts he deemed legitimate, withdrew Poe from the university, and hauled him back to Richmond in disgrace. To complete the debacle, Poe soon learned that Miss Royster’s father, having intercepted Poe’s love letters, had compelled her to break the engagement.
A fateful clash with Allan soon ensued. Condemned to disciplinary toil in the office of Ellis and Allan, Poe accused his foster father of heartlessly “exposing” his youthful indiscretions and thus blasting his hopes for “eminence in public life.” Packing his bags and leaving Moldavia, he demanded funds to journey north to earn enough