Short Fiction by Edgar Allan Poe (good books for 7th graders .TXT) 📕

Thingum,” replied my father, (I had been christened Thingum after a wealthy relative so surnamed,) “My dear Thingum,” he said, raising me from my knees by the ears⁠—“Thingum, my boy, you’re a trump, and take after your father in having a soul. You have an immense head, too, and it must hold a great many brains. This I have long seen, and therefore had thoughts of making you a lawyer. The business, however, has grown ungenteel, and that of a politician don’t pay. Upon the whole you judge wisely;⁠—the trade of editor is best:⁠—and if you can be a poet at the same time⁠—as most of the editors are, by the by⁠—why you will kill two birds with one stone. To encourage you in the beginning of things, I will allow you a garret; pen, ink, and paper; a rhyming dictionary; and a copy of the Gad-Fly. I suppose you would scarcely demand any more.”

“I would be an ungrateful villain if I did,” I replied with enthusiasm. “Your generosity is boundless. I will repay it by making you the father of a genius.”

Thus ended my conference with the best of men, and immediately upon its termination, I betook myself with zeal to my poetical labors; as upon these, chiefly, I founded my hopes of ultimate elevation to the editorial chair.

In my first attempts at composition I found the stanzas to “The Oil-of-Bob” rather a drawback than otherwise. Their splendor more dazzled than enlightened me. The contemplation of their excellence tended, naturally, to discourage me by comparison with my own abortions; so that for a long time I labored in vain. At length there came into my head one of those exquisitely original ideas which now and then will permeate the brain of a man of genius. It was this:⁠—or, rather, thus was it carried into execution. From the rubbish of an old bookstall, in a very remote corner of the town, I got together several antique and altogether unknown or forgotten volumes. The bookseller sold them to me for a song. From one of these, which purported to be a translation of one Dante’s Inferno, I copied with remarkable neatness a long passage about a man named Ugolino, who had a parcel of brats. From another which contained a good many old plays by some person whose name I forget, I extracted in the same manner, and with the same care, a great number of lines about “angels” and “ministers saying grace,” and “goblins damned,” and more besides of that sort. From a third, which was the composition of some blind man or other, either a Greek or a Choctaw⁠—I cannot be at the pains of remembering every trifle exactly⁠—I took about fifty verses beginning with “Achilles’ wrath,” and “grease,” and something else. From a fourth, which I recollect was also the work of a blind man, I selected a page or two all about “hail” and “holy light”; and although a blind man has no business to write about light, still the verses were sufficiently good in their way.

Having made fair copies of these poems, I signed every one of them “Oppodeldoc” (a fine sonorous name), and, doing each up nicely in a separate envelope, I despatched one to each of the four principal magazines, with a request for speedy insertion and prompt pay. The result of this well conceived plan, however, (the success of which would have saved me much trouble in after life,) served to convince me that some editors are not to be bamboozled, and gave the coup-de-grâce (as they say in France) to my nascent hopes (as they say in the city of the transcendentals).

The fact is, that each and every one of the magazines in question, gave Mr. “Oppodeldoc” a complete using up, in the “Monthly Notices to Correspondents.” The Hum-Drum gave him a dressing after this fashion:

“ ‘Oppodeldoc’ (whoever he is) has sent us a long tirade concerning a bedlamite whom he styles ‘Ugolino,’ who had a great many children that should have been all whipped and sent to bed without their suppers. The whole affair is exceedingly tame⁠—not to say flat. ‘Oppodeldoc’ (whoever he is) is entirely devoid of imagination⁠—and imagination, in our humble opinion, is not only the soul of Poesy, but also its very heart. ‘Oppodeldoc’ (whoever he is) has the audacity to demand of us, for his twattle, a ‘speedy insertion and prompt pay.’ We neither insert nor purchase any stuff of the sort. There can be no doubt, however, that he would meet with a ready sale for all the balderdash he can scribble, at the office of either the Rowdy-Dow, the Lollipop, or the Goosetherumfoodle.”

All this, it must be acknowledged, was very severe upon “Oppodeldoc”⁠—but the unkindest cut was putting the word Poesy in small caps. In those five preeminent letters what a world of bitterness is there not involved!

But “Oppodeldoc” was punished with equal severity in the Rowdy-Dow, which spoke thus:

“We have received a most singular and insolent communication from a person (whoever he is) signing himself ‘Oppodeldoc’⁠—thus desecrating the greatness of the illustrious Roman Emperor so named. Accompanying the letter of ‘Oppodeldoc’ (whoever he is) we find sundry lines of most disgusting and unmeaning rant about ‘angels and ministers of grace’⁠—rant such as no madman short of a Nat Lee, or an ‘Oppodeldoc,’ could possibly perpetrate. And for this trash of trash, we are modestly requested to ‘pay promptly.’ No sir⁠—no! We pay for nothing of that sort. Apply to the Hum-Drum, the Lollipop, or the Goosetherumfoodle. These periodicals will undoubtedly accept any literary offal you may send them⁠—and as undoubtedly promise to pay for it.”

This was bitter indeed upon poor “Oppodeldoc”; but, in this instance, the weight of the satire falls upon the Hum-Drum, the Lollipop, and the Goosetherumfoodle, who are pungently styled “periodicals”⁠—in Italics, too⁠—a thing that must have cut them to the heart.

Scarcely less savage was the Lollipop, which thus