Page 50 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

with Virginia.

After a time the young poet and story-writer decided to go to Richmond,
his early home. He had many friends there, who welcomed him back, and a

good position was offered him. The Southern Literary Messenger had been
started by a Mr. White, and Poe was made assistant editor.

He had become very much attached to Mrs. Clemm and Virginia while in
Baltimore, and now wished to marry Virginia. She was but fourteen years

of age,--indeed, not quite fourteen,--and Mrs. Clemm’s friends thought the
girl too young to marry. But Poe gained the mother’s consent, and he and
Virginia were united in May, 1836.

Virginia was Poe’s ideal of womanhood, and we find her figuring as the

model for nearly all the heroines of his poems. In a letter after the death of
both Virginia and her poet husband, Mrs. Clemm wrote, "She was an
excellent linguist and a perfect musician, and she was very beautiful. How

often has Eddie said, ’I see no one so beautiful as my sweet little wife.’" Poe
undertook her education as soon as they were married, and was very proud

of her brilliant accomplishments.

As she was the source of his greatest happiness, her loss was the occasion

of his greatest sorrow. A year after their marriage she burst a blood vessel
while singing. The following extract from a letter of Poe’s to a friend will

explain how this misfortune affected him.

"You say," he writes, "’Can you hint to me what was the terrible evil which

caused the irregularities so profoundly lamented?’ Yes, I can do more than
hint. This ’evil’ was the greatest which can befall a man. 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 blood 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