wine drove him practically insane, and a debauch was sure to
follow. Indulgence was stimulated, also, by the nervous strain and
worry induced by uncertain livelihood and privation, the frequent fits
of depression, and by constant brooding. Sometimes he fought his
weakness successfully for several years, but always it conquered in
the end.

Moreover, he speaks of a very special cause in the latter part of his
life, which in fairness should be heard in his own written words to a
friend: "Six years ago a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved
before, ruptured a blood vessel in singing. Her life was despaired
of. I took leave of her forever and underwent all the agonies of her
death. She recovered partially and I again hoped. At the end of a year
the vessel broke again. I went through precisely the same scene....
Then again--again--and even once again, at varying intervals. Each
time I felt all the agonies of her death--and at each accession of her
disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more
desperate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive--nervous in
a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of
horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute unconsciousness, I
drank--God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my
enemies referred the insanity to the drink, rather than the drink to
the insanity.... It was the horrible never-ending oscillation between
hope and despair, which I could _not_ longer have endured without
total loss of reason. In the death of what was my life, then, I
received a new, but--O God!--how melancholy an existence!"

This statement, and the other facts mentioned, are not offered as
wholly excusing Poe. Doubtless a stronger man would have resisted,
doubtless a less self-absorbed man would have thought of his wife's