The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-08

him, although he may have played
some childish game with us the day
before. But my mother would reason
with him and advise him, and lie would
always hear what she had to say, even
though he might not heed.
He lived in AFFECT poverty My
mother sent many a time from har
storeroom to his table He was natural
ly improvident, and his wife was dying
of consumption and hardship. He was
not man who drank In the common
acceptation of the word, but those We're
the days when wine ran like water, and
not to serve it would have seemed mig
gardly. 1 remember that one DAY
Muddy as he called Mrs. GLENN,
came to our house and asked us not
to offer wine to Edgar, as his head was
weak but he did not wish to refuse"
1 am drawn to you by your defense
of Edgar A. Poe writes John De Gar
hford of Chattanooga, Tenn. Il 1--we
him, though / met him but once-it
was in September 1S45. was sitting on
a pile watching our bark that was
moored to the pile. A quiet, neatly
dressed gentleman came up to Inc and
asked me numberless questions in re-
gard to my seafaring life. He was so
loVable in his conversation that ! never
forgot him, and l prize the memory Of
that few hours of his sweet talk with
me and hold it sacred to his memory.
He could not have been drinking
man, for his looks did not show it,
On my telling that | was a runaway
boy from Kentucky. he took some
scraps of paper from his pocket and
took notes, telling me he could make a
NICE story out of what | had told him.
took him aboard the bark and showed
him pet monkey l had brought from
Natal. He ate a piece of biscuit. drank
some cold coffee and told me he should
come and see me again and get
acquainted with my captain. This was
years ago. am an old man now,
seventy-three years old but | can re-
member word for word all that passed"
so far as women were concerned, Poe
seems to have been always a favorite.
He was the son of one beautiful woman,
the husband of another and the idol Of
a noble woman whose mission on earth
seems to have been to show that the
mother-ln- law can be an actual angel
if she will
we knew they We're poor" said an
old lady, neighbor of the Fordham
days, but by Mrs. Clemm's cheeriness
you Almost thought them better off
than any of us. She used to scrlmp and
pinch along with Poe, so the sick wife
wouldn't know they We're so poor"
never saw any check mating last
like theirs testifies another old lady.
Ehere wasn't anything upstairs but
an old cot in the front room. where
MRS. GLENN slept, and an old table and
a CHAIR in the back chamber where Poe
shut himself up; but you could have
eaten off the two floors. There wasn't
any grocery nearer than West Farms.
and many time l have seen her trudg-
ing over there for scrimpings of things
you could have carried in your pocket.
Ihey would get all out of food, and
then you would see time and again Mrs
GLENN with basket and a shiny case
knife digging greens. Greens can be
took too often I'd say to her. oh, no
she would answer smiling. greens are
cooling for the blood, and Eddes fond
of them -
Imagine a range of literary achieve
ments from "Anabel Lee" to the "Pur-
loined Letter" or to the ratiocination
or the Gold Bug" written after a din
her OF. herbs! And this, despite Hor-
aces dictum that no man who drank
water wrote poems fit to live,
remember the fragile Wife" says
anotner Fordham neighbor. I'VE never
saw her save on the old cottage p-rch
and then with Poe invariably beside
ner or lowering about her lovingly.
Ihese gllmpses of the couple were not
perhaps, so frequent to us as to the
villagers, but easy to be had when
passing on the Kingsbridge road for
the end of the porch touched the lane
as II does now, and we knew the sad
ness ness OF their lives, which impressed
these things vividly. / recall the DIV.
ing wife as a pallid brunette. of slight
ana delicate stature, dark hair ana
eyes ana most ethereal presence Poe,s
devotion to her was neyer-endine Tts
very hopelessness and his material in
t ~, 10 90 the countless things for
her That the super sensitive spirit ana
dlert rove OF a man of his mold
to him. ms
Poe's struggles with starvation were
superhuman, says a priest of ST.
Johns College, who knew him "and
1t is crime that this is not universal
~ recognized, and also a crime that
ms true achievement over this curse
Is NOT counted to his honor. | remem-
Der distinctly the hard work he did in
ms last years here. | have repeated
~ seen him returning careworn from
ms toll In New York, or with a start
ing pallor that told not only of his
great labor of his continual discol1r
agements, of the agony of his fears for
the tickering life in the little home on
the MIL; but of intolerable conflicts
WIN and victory over, the temptation
10 drink, ceaselessly raging within
him. and as ceaselessly outwardlv be-
setting him. 1t is true that. rarely
and infrequently, he did give way to
this while here. AT those times he was
not the wild man that has been so
persistently pictured. A gentle word
invariably controlled him. The offer
OF ones arm, or, Come, Poe, we VIII
go home now We're quite sufficient
He was the embodiment of the spirit
of gentleness and sweetness"
If it is that the day of the rehabilita-
ton % this poor. starved soul has come
at las through the nobility of his al
ma mater. let her receive She honor Of
her just deed. For, sooner or later
this justice was TO come The epi-
taph of obloquy could not have re-
manned legible forever!
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