Page 54 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor
P. 54
sort of rapturous worship of the spirit of beauty, which he felt was fading
before his eyes. "I have seen him," says Mr. Graham, "hovering around her
when she was ill, with all the fond fear and tender anxiety of a mother for
her first-born--her slightest cough causing him a shudder, a heart chill, that
was visible. I rode out one summer evening with them, and the
remembrance of his watchful eyes, eagerly bent upon the slightest change
of hue in that loved face, haunts me yet as the memory of a sad strain. It
was this hourly anticipation of her loss which made him a sad and
thoughtful man, and lent a mournful melody to his undying song."
At last he left Philadelphia and returned to New York, where he remained
for the rest of his life. This is the childlike way he writes to his
mother-in-law concerning the journey:
"My Dear Muddy,
"We have just this minute done breakfast, and I now sit down to write you
about everything. * * * In the first place, we arrived safe at Walnut St.
wharf. The driver wanted to make me pay a dollar, but I wouldn’t. Then I
had to pay a boy a levy to put the trunks in the baggage car.
"In the meantime I took Sis [Virginia] in the Depot Hotel. * * * We went in
the cars to Amboy, * * * and then took the steamboat the rest of the way.
Sissy coughed none at all. I left her on board the boat. * * * Then I went up
Greenwich St. and soon found a boarding house. * * * I made a bargain in a
few minutes and then got a hack and went for Sis. * * * When we got to the
house we had to wait about half an hour before the room was ready. The
house is old and looks buggy, * * * the cheapest board I ever knew, taking
into consideration the central situation and the living. I wish Kate
[Catterina, the cat] could see it--she would faint."
They had a little cottage at Fordham, in the country just out of New York. It
was a very humble place, but the scenery about it was beautiful. Poe
himself became ill, and his dear Virginia was dying of consumption. They
were so poor that friends had to help them. One of these friends wrote:
