Text: Anonymous, “[Comment on Dr. Moran's Lecture],” The State (Richmond, VA), vol. VI, no. 292, February 25, 1882, p. 1, cols. 3-4

[page 1, column 3, continued:]

There is no place in the world which is so jealous of the fame of Edgar Allen [[Allan]] Poe as Richmond, and rightly so too, for though born elsewhere, he was really and truly her's by adoption and by the pride she has always taken in him. It was therefore with the greatest delight a large audience listened last night to the lecture of Dr. John J. Moran at Mozart Hall. Dr. Moran was at Poe's bed. He. acting as his physician, when he died and the fact that he received the last words of the great poet and became their custodian lends a peculiar sacredness and solemnity to what he says, and when he declares that Poe, though of a convivial nature, was far from being a debauchee, m some bare delighted to report bias, and was properly sober under most circumstances, [column 4:] and entirely so throughout his last illness, that in a word, he was no drunkard, and those who have proclaimed him such were wretched slanderers, envious of his fame, he but repeats what we all know and believe. But while this testimony will have great weight, coming from the scource [[source]] it does, and Dr. Moran deserves our thanks, yet we must he pardoned for observing that. We hold Poe too great a man to need any vindication, let his habits in life have been what they may. His resplendent genius veiled them all even as the brightness of the sun hides its own defective spots.