Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-10-01

The death of Virginia marked the EN-
trance of another gentle woman friend
into Poes life. that of Mrs. Marie Shew
Houghton who in noble spiritual man.
ner aided the family, a woman whose
relations began with them through char
ity, but ended with sincere love.
1t was Mrs. Houghton who acted for the
poet and arranged the last sad rites for
the dead Virginia, who placed her in
borrowed tomb in Fordham. raised money
for the future and practically supported
them until Poes brain recovered from the
shock of Virginias death. Mrs. Houghton
was a doctors daughter, and she saw
the danger that the suffering brain
would never recover its proper balance
Il did not feel much hope, says the
lady in her diary, THAT he could be
raised up from the brain fever brought
on by extreme suffering of mind and
body-actual want and hunger and cold
having been borne by this heroic husband
in order TO supply food. medicine and
comforts to his dying wife-until ex-
haustion and lifelessness were so near
at every reaction of the fever that even
sedatives had to be administered with
extreme caution.
He chung pathetically to the dingy lit
tie cottage, went out little. wrote less.
comforted by those two women souls who
loved him, Maria GLENN and Mrs. Hough-
ton. Gradually they pulled the curtain of
madness aside from his life. Mrs. GLENN
often sitting up with him all night. sooth-
ing his brow and caressing him in his
troubled sleep when visions of his dead
Virginia SO charmed and haunted him.
Mrs. Houghton provided the necessary
comforts for his sick taste and cheered
him by the sunshine of her presence.
That. presently, after the first pangs o.
Virginia death were past, a deep at
lection sprang up for Mrs. Houghton i:
everywhere evinced. but that on Edgar
part, at least, il was induced by the mem
DRY of her kindnesses, both to his deat
wife and to his mother and himself il
only too patent
But that Mrs. Houghton loved Edgar Po
dearly loved him with depth all un
reouited. is too sadly plain. Ones own
heart aches as thought remains of thi
beautiful Lady Bountiful loving so deep
ly and tenderly this poet prince. wh
all unconscious of it must have wounde'
her loving heart more than once by IN
character of his regard for her. H
placed her love on a plane with that o
Mrs. Stanard. the ideal love of his boy
hood. and probably never dreamed tina
she loved him with a womanS passion TO
him who has won her heart
x
So after about a year their life way
parted, he to go in two short years t
his death. she, to live and defend, wit
pen dipped in the fire of love, his mem
Dry In the golden chain of Poe women
Marie Shew Houghton shines out as doe
a precious jewel, for hers was a self-sac
rificing, a self-denying love and her
divine self-abnegation.
Then entered "Helen-my Helen-th'
Helen of a thousand dreams" Low
springs from love and Poe had beef
taught by the women who loved him t
seek the women he should love, the on
woman of his life, Mrs. Sarah Heller
Whitman. Mrs. Whitman was one o.
Americas most gifted woman poets,
child of genius, a delicate, a spirituell
New England orchid. the real soul mat
of that southern child of fire, Edgar Al
Ian Poe.
Their inner natures were atune. Tne,
had the same racial characteristics. Gel
tic Norman lineage, warm romance blood