. American lands and letters. edy, who is his stanch friendthereafter always ; sometimes he is sunk in thedepths of poverty, and sometimes regaling himselfin such over-joyous ways as have sad and fatefulreaction. Among the paternal relatives he falls inwith at Baltimore is the widowed sister of hisfather—Mrs. Clemm, with her daughter of eleven(the archetype of his delightful flesh-and-bloodstory of Eleonora), who are thenceforth for manya year all in all to him. With that dark-hairedgirl in her earlier teens, the high-browed pale j^oet— with shrunken purse and pride at its highest —may have wa
. American lands and letters. edy, who is his stanch friendthereafter always ; sometimes he is sunk in thedepths of poverty, and sometimes regaling himselfin such over-joyous ways as have sad and fatefulreaction. Among the paternal relatives he falls inwith at Baltimore is the widowed sister of hisfather—Mrs. Clemm, with her daughter of eleven(the archetype of his delightful flesh-and-bloodstory of Eleonora), who are thenceforth for manya year all in all to him. With that dark-hairedgirl in her earlier teens, the high-browed pale j^oet— with shrunken purse and pride at its highest —may have wandered time on time, over the prettyundulations of surface, where the trees of Druid* Published by Elam Bhss, 1831, pp. 124. POE AT RICHMOND. 381 Hill now cast their shadows. There may havebeen a yearning for the latitude of Eichmond andfor the luxuries of the big brick mansion of theAllans (corner of Main and Fifth Streets), wherehe had in his boy-days won plaudits for his oratoryover the mahogany of his The Allan House, Riclimund, Va. The hopes that centred there, however, weresoon at an end ; the kindly Mrs. Allan had diedin 1829 ; in 1833 the master of the great house hadmarried again ; and the year following had gonefrom it to his grave—not without one last inter-view, when he had lifted his cane threateninglyupon the discarded Edgar. 382 AMERICAN LANDS &- LETTERS. But the poet finds work in Riclimond upon theSouthern Literary Messenger; he has promise often dollars a week; and npon that promise — tak-ing radiance from the poetic haloes of his genius—he determines to marry that sweet girl-cousin ofhis, Virginia Clemm — scarce fifteen as yet — andestablish her, with her helpful mother, in a homeof his own. There is opposition, strong and j)ro-tracted ; but it is over-borne by the impetuosity ofthe poet ; and the strange wedding comes about(183G), the certificate of marriage declaring thebride — twenty-one I * Whether by pre-natal influences
Size: 1926px × 1297px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublishernewyorkcscribnerss
