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brighten the memory of the poet, even were there not a more needed and
immediate service which it may render to the nearest link broken by his
death.
Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe's removal to this city was by a call
which we received from a lady who introduced herself to us as the mother
of his wife. She was in search of employment for him, and she excused
her errand by mentioning that he was ill, that her daughter was a
confirmed invalid, and that their circumstances were such as compelled
her taking it upon herself. The countenance of this lady, made beautiful
and saintly with an evidently complete giving up of her life to
privation and sorrowful tenderness, her gentle and mournful voice urging
its plea, her long-forgotten but habitually and unconsciously refined
manners, and her appealing and yet appreciative mention of the claims
and abilities of her son, disclosed at once the presence of one of those
angels upon earth that women in adversity can be. It was a hard fate
that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with fastidious difficulty,
and in a style too much above the popular level to be well paid. He was
always in pecuniary difficulty, and, with his sick wife, frequently in
want of the merest necessaries of life. Winter after winter, for
years, the most touching sight to us, in this whole city, has been that
tireless minister to genius, thinly and insufficiently clad, going from
office to office with a poem, or an article on some literary subject, to
sell, sometimes simply pleading in a broken voice that he was ill, and
begging for him, mentioning nothing but that "he was ill," whatever
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