As a scholar he was
      ambitious to excel. He was remarkable for self-respect, without
      haughtiness. He had a sensitive and tender heart and would do
      anything for a friend. His nature was entirely free from
      selfishness.”

      At the age of seventeen Poe entered the University of Virginia at
      Charlottesville. He left that institution after one session. Official records prove that he was not expelled. On the contrary,
      he gained a creditable record as a student, although it is
      admitted that he contracted debts and had “an ungovernable
      passion for card-playing.” These debts may have led to his
      quarrel with Mr. Allan which eventually compelled him to make his
      own way in the world. Early in 1827 Poe made his first literary venture. He induced
      Calvin Thomas, a poor and youthful printer, to publish a small
      volume of his verses under the title “Tamerlane and Other Poems.”
      In 1829 we find Poe in Baltimore with another manuscript volume
      of verses, which was soon published. Its title was “Al Aaraaf,
      Tamerlane and Other Poems.” Neither of these ventures seems to
      have attracted much attention. Soon after Mrs. Allan’s death, which occurred in 1829, Poe,
      through the aid of Mr. Allan, secured admission to the United
      States Military Academy at West Point. Any glamour which may have
      attached to cadet life in Poe’s eyes was speedily lost, for
      discipline at West Point was never so severe nor were the
      accommodations ever so poor. Poe’s bent was more and more toward
      literature. Life at the academy daily became increasingly
      distasteful. Soon he began to purposely neglect his studies and
      to disregard his duties, his aim being to secure his dismissal
      from the United States service. In this he succeeded. On March 7,
      1831, Poe found himself free. Mr. Allan’s second marriage had
      thrown the lad on his own resources. His literary career was to
      begin. Poe’s first genuine victory was won in 1833, when he was the
      successful competitor for a prize of $100 offered by a Baltimore
      periodical for the best prose story. “A MSS. Found in a Bottle”
      was the winning tale. Poe had submitted six stories in a volume. “Our only difficulty,” says Mr. Latrobe, one of the judges, “was
      in selecting from the rich contents of the volume.”

      During the fifteen years of his literary life Poe was connected
      with various newspapers and magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia
      and New York. He was faithful, punctual, industrious, thorough. N. P. Willis, who for some time employed Poe as critic and
      sub-editor on the “Evening Mirror,” wrote thus:

      “With the highest admiration for Poe’s genius, and a willingness
      to let it alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led
      by common report to expect a very capricious attention to his
      duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time
      went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. We saw but one presentiment of the man—a quiet, patient,
      industrious and most gentlemanly person. “We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be stated in
      all mention of his lamentable irregularities), that with a single
      glass of wine his whole nature was reversed, the demon became
      uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of intoxication
      were visible, his will was palpably insane. In this reversed
      character, we repeat, it was never our chance to meet him.”

      On September 22, 1835, Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in
      Baltimore. She had barely turned thirteen years, Poe himself was
      but twenty-six. He then was a resident of Richmond and a regular
      contributor to the “Southern Literary Messenger.” It was not
      until a year later that the bride and her widowed mother followed
      him thither. Poe’s devotion to his child-wife was one of the most beautiful
      features of his life. Many of his famous poetic productions were
      inspired by her beauty and charm. Consumption had marked her for
      its victim, and the constant efforts of husband and mother were
      to secure for her all the comfort and happiness their slender
      means permitted. Virginia died January 30, 1847, when but
      twenty-five years of age. A friend of the family pictures the
      death-bed scene—mother and husband trying to impart warmth to her
      by chafing her hands and her feet, while her pet cat was suffered
      to nestle upon her bosom for the sake of added warmth. These verses from “Annabel Lee,” written by Poe in 1849, the last
      year of his life, tell of his sorrow at the loss of his
      child-wife:

     _I_ was a child and _she_ was a child,
    In a kingdom by the sea;
     But we loved with a love that was more than love—
    I and my Annabel Lee;
     With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
    Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago,
    In this kingdom by the sea. A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
    My beautiful Annabel Lee;
     So that her high-born kinsmen came
    And bore her away from me,
     To shut her up in a sepulchre
    In this kingdom by the sea. Poe was connected at various times and in various capacities with
      the “Southern Literary Messenger” in Richmond, Va.; “Graham’s
      Magazine” and the “Gentleman’s Magazine” in Philadelphia; the
      “Evening Mirror,” the “Broadway Journal,” and “Godey’s Lady’s
      Book” in New York. Everywhere Poe’s life was one of unremitting
      toil. No tales and poems were ever produced at a greater cost of
      brain and spirit. Poe’s initial salary with the “Southern Literary Messenger,” to
      which he contributed the first drafts of a number of his
      best-known tales, was $10 a week! Two years later his salary was
      but $600 a year. Even in 1844, when his literary reputation was
      established securely, he wrote to a friend expressing his
      pleasure because a magazine to which he was to contribute had
      agreed to pay him $20 monthly for two pages of criticism. Those were discouraging times in American literature, but Poe
      never lost faith. He was finally to triumph wherever pre-eminent
      talents win admirers.