The book was a great advance upon his previous
collection, but failed to obtain any amount of public praise or personal
profit for its author.
Feeling the difficulty of living by literature at the same time that he
saw he might have to rely largely upon his own exertions for a
livelihood, Poe expressed a wish to enter the army. After no little
difficulty a cadetship was obtained for him at the West Point Military
Academy, a military school in many respects equal to the best in Europe
for the education of officers for the army. At the time Poe entered the
Academy it possessed anything but an attractive character, the
discipline having been of the most severe character, and the
accommodation in many respects unsuitable for growing lads.
The poet appears to have entered upon this new course of life with his
usual enthusiasm, and for a time to have borne the rigid rules of the
place with unusual steadiness. He entered the institution on the 1st
July, 1830, and by the following March had been expelled for determined
disobedience. Whatever view may be taken of Poe's conduct upon this
occasion, it must be seen that the expulsion from West Point was of his
own seeking. Highly-colored pictures have been drawn of his eccentric
behavior at the Academy, but the fact remains that he wilfully, or at
any rate purposely, flung away his cadetship.
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