to be perverse?  Could any desire be more impish?—­I will illustrate by my own case, I am in one respect not like other men.  An exceptionally high-strung nervous temperament makes alcoholic stimulants poison to me.  It works like madness in my brain and in my blood.  The glass of wine that you can take with pleasure and perhaps with benefit drives me wild—­makes me commit all manner of reckless deeds that in my sane moments fill me with sorrow!—­and sometimes produces physical illness followed by depression of spirits, horrible in the extreme.  More—­an inherited desire for stimulation and the exhilaration produced by wine, makes it well nigh impossible for me, once I have yielded my will so far as to take the single glass, to resist the second, which is more than apt to be followed by a third, and so on.  I am fully aware therefore, of the danger that lies for me in a thing harmless to many men, and that my only safety and happiness and the happiness of those far dearer to me than myself, lies in the strictest, most rigid abstinence.  Knowing all this, one would suppose that I would fly from this temptation as it were the plague.  I do generally.  At present, several years have passed since I yielded an inch.  But there have been times—­and there may be times again—­when the Imp of the Perverse will command me to drink and, fully aware of the risk, I will drink, and will go down into hell for a longer or shorter period afterward.”

During this lecture upon one of his favorite hobbies, the low voice of The Dreamer was vibrant with earnestness.  He spoke out of bitter experience and as he who bore the reputation of a reserved man, laid his soul bare, his vivid eyes held the eyes of his companion by the very intensity—­the deep sincerity of their gaze.

Mr. Graham’s last conversation with his new editor had dazed him; this one dazed him still more.  What manner of man was this? (he asked himself) with whom he had formed a league?  He could not say—­beyond the fact that he was undoubtedly original—­and interesting.  Admirable qualities for an editor—­both!

The readers of the new monthly thoroughly agreed with him.  The history of Edgar Poe’s career as editor of The Southern Literary Messenger promptly began to repeat itself with Graham’s Magazine.  The announcement that he had been engaged as editor immediately drew the attention of the reading world toward Graham’s, and it soon became apparent that in the new position he was going to out-do himself.  The rapidity with which his brilliant and caustic critiques and essays, and weird stories, followed upon the heels of one another was enough to take one’s breath away.  He alternately raised the hair of his readers with master-pieces of unearthly imaginings and diverted them with playful studies in autography and exhibitions of skill in reading secret writing.