Text: Melville Philips, “Some New Memories of Poe,” Texas Siftings (Austin, TX), vol. 3, no. 21, May 26, 1883, p. 3

[page 3:]

The happiest of the few happy days of Edgar Allen [[Allan]] Poe, were passed, it appears, in this “clever city built by Quakers.” Here his purse was fattest, his gifted pen in constant demand, and here he spent his sweetest hours with Virginia, the “rare and radiant” child wife.

A dismal life? From the natal day in Boston, through the college years in the “old Dominion,” the uncongenial atmosphere of West Point, and even during the greatest portion of his literary labors here in Philadelphia, down to the last pitiable gutter scenes in the Monumental city — it is a gloomy pilgramage [[pilgrimage]] of soul-sickness and unrest. In contemplating it we are much unconscionable heaviness of heart, buy the feigned lugubriousness of the biographers, who weave a confusing and unwarrantable web of romanticism around their unhappy theme, spun from imaginations far too sympathetic. Still we can feel abundant and genuine sorrow for the unfortunate fate of rich fancy, often crushed, perhaps, for want of proper appreciation. There was only the one who thoroughly understood, and reflected his peculiar mental construction; but Virginia, peerless Virginia, died. “Her eyes could match those of any houri and her face defy the genius of Canova to imitate. She had a disposition of unsurpassing sweetness and seemed withal, as much devoted to him and his every interest, as a young mother to her first born.”

It is absurd to accuse Poe of drinking to excess. Says N. P. Willis, the writer: “With a single glass of wine his whole nature was reversed; the demon became uppermost, and although some of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane.”

William F. Gill reports a clergyman in Massachusetts who knew Poe well during his later years as saying “I was thirsty and invited him to take a glass of wine with me. He declined, but finally compromised by taking a glass of ale. Almost instantly a great change came over him. Previously engaged in an indescribably eloquent conversation, he became as if paralyzed, and with compressed lips, and fixed, glaring eyes returned without uttering a word to that house which we were visiting.”

How, then, could he have been the sot, which many would wish to make him? Griswold charged him with the total lack of a moral perception. A certain young lady wrote the poet, “How often have I heard men and even women say of you. ‘He has great intellectual power, but no principle, no moral sense.’ ”

“Of what avail to me, in my deadly grief, are your enthusiastic words of mere admiration. You will feel remorseful for the question when I say to you, that until the moment when those horrible words first met my eye. I would not have believed it possible that nay such opinions could have existed at all; but that they do exist breaks my heart in separating us forever. I love you too truly ever to have ever sought your love ever to have offered you my hand, had I known my name to be so stained as your expressions imply. * * * If I have erred at all in this regard, it has been on the side of what the world would call a Quixotic sense of the honorable, of the chivalrous. The indulgence of this sense has been the true voluptuousness of my life. It was for this species of luxury that, in my early youth, I deliberately threw away a large fortune, rather than endure a trivial wrong.”

But I am not writing Poe's biography. If I were I should call your attention to his suit against The Mirror for defamation of character, in which he was awarded such a large amount of damages, as for the time to completely break up that journal. No, I am simply about to make public some fresh and, perhaps, unexpected phases of he poet's private life. Before I proceed to do so let me briefly mention an incident in his career at West Point, during the last days of which one of his first volumes of poems was published. Poe never looked with favor on the prospect of an army life. He tried hard to secure his guardian's permission to his retirement, but without success. Then the Polish war broke forth, and all the poet's romantic nature was at once enlisted on the side of the struggling little state. He determined to participate in the affray but as it was impossible to obtain leave of absence for such a mission, he proceeded to arrive at the same result through a widely different process. He commended to amuse himself by caricaturing and pasquinading the professors. “One gentleman, named Joseph Locke, had made himself particularly obnoxious,” records a recent fact collector; “through his pertinacity in reporting the pranks of the cadets. At West Point a report is to everyday matter, but a very serious thing. A certain number of them secures the cadet a dismissal. Mr. Poe t this time, wrote a length and audacious lampoon against this Mr. Locke, of which the following are the only stanzas preserved:

In fine, this and other similar offences soon effected his wish, and robbed of his uniform, he stared down the Hudson. But the capitulation of Warsaw had been announced, and Poland's dreams were dissipated. He returned to Baltimore, and soon after, his guardian, Mr. Allen [[Allan]], died. Poe's name fails to figure in the will, and he is even refused possession of the private library by the young widow. So he comes to Philadelphia and embarks on that literary life of which I have something now to tell you.

A very dreary, leaden-hued building, in a most remarkably unheard of quarter for a dwelling house, is the one labled [[labelled]] “728,” on Sansom street. It is the only dwelling house in that block; the only respectable one indeed, within many blocks. All around are gambling dens, beer saloons and paper warehouses. And this house — it is a precious stone among a bad heap of brick-bats; and oasis of art in a desert of business. An iron railing flanks the stone steps, which lead side-ways up to the door, past two melancholy windows of stained glass. The bronze bell knob is adorned with the helmeted head of a crusader. The elaborate nature of the door mouldings, puts to shame the simplicity of the neighboring brotherhood, in the [column 2:] center — in the center, in a rectangle of polished nickel, bearing the script intaglio “Sartain.”

Sartain! A familiar dissyllable. For more than half a century this name has been the correlative of a glorious art, an art which the owner has done more toward furthering than any other man, living or dead. Since I could first appreciate a print, my eyes have been confronted by the superb mezzo-tints of this prince of steel engravings. It was he who introduced this departure from line engravings or etching, into America. Years ago, his burin had already executed a greater amount of first-class work than had ever been accomplished by any one in the profession during a whole lifetime. Those who can remember the fat past when the annuals were in fashion, Graham's, the Eclectic, and a host of others, will recall his beautiful plates. Never was graver more prolific. The celebrated portrait of Sir Robert Peel, in the October number, 1850, of the Eclectic, was begun at ten minutes before two, and at five the same afternoon a finished proof was mailed to New York. And the same uniform excellency of workmanship was apparent in all his multitude of plates; no diminution of skill to be seen in the perfect little mezzo-tint of Espartero, started at midnight and ready for the printers in the morning, even though the busy, brilliant artist was then astonishing the world with such master-pieces as his “Christ Rejected,” after West; ‘The Iron Worker and King Solomon,” after Schussele, and “Knox before Mary Queen of Scots,” after Lentze. But consult Allibone and you will find that during all this time his pen was racing with his graver. Sartain's Magazine was one of the most extensively circulated journals in this country. And his writing is of as high a standard of excellence as his stippling. Then, too, he excells oil painting, in which his instructors were the great Defranca, and Joshua Shaw; and in water colors, under the tutelage of Varley and Richter. But he is an architect also, and not a mere amateur. He understands architecture thoroughly, and practically. In proof of which you should see our monument to Washington and Lafayette designed and erected by him.

“It is not alone as an artist, as a just man, as a wise and dauntless reformer, that Mr. Sartain claims our admiration,” observed The Nineteenth Century, more than a quarter of a century ago. “His views in religion, in political and moral science, are all of the most expanded character. As proprietor and editor of the Foreign Semi-Monthly Magazine, he displayed the finest literary taste. He was the first in this country to reprint the ‘Song of the Shirt,’ ‘The Drop of Gin,’ ‘The Bridge of Sighs,’ and much of the same class of poetry, and has ever manifested the same devotion to American literature that he has to American Art.”

“It was to interview this man of genius that your correspondent recently ascended the steps of the leaden-hued dwelling on Sansom street; steps, he knew, which had often felt the tread of Edgar Allen [[Allan]] Poe, long before his birth was even a matter of conjecture.

Mr. Sartain —— pronounced as certain is mutilated by the middle class of New England tongues — Mr. Sartain, was at home, the maid admitted, tapping a call bell forthwith, as proof of the honesty of her admission, and ushering me through a tiny, cozy vestibule, embellished with a bronze figure on a bracket and a copy of Raphael's Madonna Sedillio, imbedded in a niche, into a picturesque little waiting room, some dozen feet quare, with a ceiling frescoed in olive and old gold, walls to match, with a dado of Grecian design, and hung with the owner's masterly steel plates. The floor was beautifully inlaid [[exotic???]] . . . woods forming an intricate [[pattern???]] . . . composed of more than 15,000 pieces, made, I subsequently learned, by La Chapelle of Strasburg.

The wonderful prints on the walls might have held my attention till now, and I was lost in admiration of two (which the artist has since told me he regards as his finest work, engravings of Mr and Mrs. Robert Gilmor, of Baltimore, from portraits in oil by Sir Thos. Lawrence), when the rapid pattering of slippered feet on the hard hall floor brought me to, and turning I was pleasantly welcomed by Sartain himself, a modest, medium-sized, and, apparently, middle-aged man, with cropped moustache, and thin, straggling beard. I say, apparently middle-aged, but he was born in London 1808, one year before Poe first saw light in Boston. Emily Sartain, his daughter, who sailed yesterday for Havre, and whose phenomenal success i wielding the grave finds a reason in her father's genius, and her sever years of study under Luminais, at Paris, might better seem a sister; as two of the sons, both distinguished artists, are by many considered brothers to their father.

Sartain is a fertile theme. His recollections of men and things would fill volumes of happy reading, no less interesting than his large accumulation of autograph letters from distinguished men. Among the latter is a noteworthy epistle from Bayard Taylor, when in his seventeenth years, asking Sartain to receive him as an apprentice. On the center table were two, freshly torn open; one, a fraternal greeting from his old chum, Ricmond the greatest of living oil painters in England, and it says: “Herbert sends regards” the other, a most beautifully worded message from Salvini. From his novitiate with Attley, the eminent amateur artist and author, in whose house the works of masters as Titian, Correggio, Turne, and Salvator Ross adorned the walls while the floors were familiar with the read of such genius as Sir Thomas Lawrence, Fanny Kemble, Thomas Campbell, and all that large world of London wits and litterateures, down to his knighthood by Marie de Lonignan, Princess de Caprie et Armenie, the long flow of years is full of reminiscences of English and American men of letters; and of unsought honors; as the appointment of Chief of the Bureau of Art at the Centennial, and his title of Chevalier, conferred by the King of Italy, with a decoration, accompanied by the appointment of “Office of the Equestrian Order of the Crown of Italy;” all because of great services rendered to Italian art.

“I am busy etching a bust of the Father of our Country,” said he, affably: “you come right up into my workroom, and I will tell the readers of SIFTING all I know about poor Poe.”

So up we went, through a drawing-room with windows of stained glass and walls hidden by choice works of art; along a narrow glass-roofed corridor, whose sides teemed with rare oils and water colors — all originals; here a Tusey, there a Richter — thence past long, low walnut cases, packed with good reading matter, and stumpy pedestals supporting marbles and bronzes — up a short flight of steps into the famous workshop. Under the windows, which looked out into an open area, extended a rough bench, covered with engraving implements. On the walls were several unframed foreign landscapes, presents to the artist; but the general appearance of the room, with its bulky tools, and scant, rough furniture, was that of a wheelwright's shop. Seating myself in front of a ruling machine, I watched the great engraving build a wall of wax around the eternal lineaments of George Washington. This done, he reached for the aqua fortis, and began: [column 3:] I first made the acquaintance of Poe in 1840, when he was writing for Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. He was a handsome man; sharp, long nose, thin lips, and tender eyes; but his head was not shaped, as people suppose, who have seen that unfortunate full-face portrait, with the apparently straight, high forehead. It receded considerably, though the temples swelled out, and phrenologically accounted for the large ideality of the man. Poe was offended at Burton for selling the Gentleman's Magazine, without giving him any notice. He had reckoned on being employed and was disappointed. Just about this time I started my own monthly (Sartain's Magazine), and he at once contributed. We published his “Eulalie Lee” and “The Bells.” I remember that when he brought us the latter poem it contained by two stanzas. We had so much matter on hand that Prof. Hart, the grammarian, who was my editor, laid it aside. After a while, Poe took it away with him to Baltimore, elaborated it as it now reads, and returned it to us, saying the thought it now fit for publication. Again, Poe came to me one day and tendered a short article for pint. I told him to take it to Prof. Hart; that I did not wish to infringe upon the duties of my editor. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘Sartain, you can attend to the matter just as well. Besides, I can't wait; I want money immediately.’ So, at last, I bought it from him, and found out later that he had sold the same article to two other publishers.

“I would rather,” added he, “that you would not publish this;” but somehow or other it has slipped through my perjured pen, notwithstanding.

“Poe liked to have it believe that his poems were all spontaneous — inspired effusions for the moment. I recall certain day when Butler, the publisher, was here and Poe chanced in upon us. They were evidently on bad terms; but directly the conversation turned to poetical inspiration and Poe suddenly offered to write an instantaneous poem for five dollars. Butler accepted the offer, whereupon Poe sat down and at once dashed off an exquisite eight line verse. I had my doubts — but, never mind; only I know him to have been very methodical in his literary construction. Why, I never met a man so fond of dressing up riddles, or concealing a small grain of fact in a great bundle of mysterious words. Poe was modest — very; but one day, while laboring under the influence of drink, he stepped into the atelier of Thos. Buchanan Read, then several door above me, here on Sansom street, and, after conversing some time with his fellow-poet, suddenly exclaimed: ‘Read, say what they will, I have written one poem that shall live forever — The Raven.’

“Apropros of Read; he was not half so good an artist as a poet, yet he wouldn't believe it. He did not like the indifference I displayed, when once he said to me: ‘Sartain, I can't return you that money I borrowed, but some day I’ll paint you a picture. I only smiled, and said: ‘Take more than one day to it, Read, please.’

When I projected my American Galley of Art (on which, by the way, I only recovered one thousand of the two thousand dollar I sunk in it), my intention was to reproduce but one work, the master-piece of each American artist of note. One day while Read and I were talking the project over, I seized my pencil, and sketched him life-size, as he lay stretched out on the chair. He fell asleep, and I continued my work, throwing around the portrait bold draperies held up by darts and cupids. In the background I placed a white Grecian temple, with a large dome, half hidden in an olive grove. When Read awoke and saw it, he said, ‘Sartain that's excellent and I’ll tell you what I’ll contribute instead of a poem — proem for the whole scheme.’ Soon after he sent it to me.

These are the only two lines, I can now recall of the beautiful poem which Sartain then recited for me with charming fervor. Continuing, he said:

“A singular fact, but one thoroughly in accord with Poe's openness of nature, was the confidence he placed in Rufus Griswold. He constituted him his literary executor, and yet Dr. Griswold was his most malignant enemy, as his cruel strictures on Poe's light excesses abundantly testify. Let me explain this. In 1843, Poe commenced the publication of what had always been the constant and fondest dream of his life — a literary journal. It was called The Stylus, a monthly journal of general literature, to be edited by Edgar A. Poe. The elaborate prospectus stated:

Just here let me add that Poe has secured for [[The]] Stylus the services of F. O. C. Darley, the well known artist, and the agreement between them illustrates the great advance in prices paid for artistic work. Darley was to receive seven dollars for each design, drawn either on wood or paper, as required. His superiority in this line of work was then as well recognized as it is now; but, as his elegant mansion a few miles out of town would seem to indicate, he would scarcely undertake a similar contract, at present, for less than ten times the price then paid. Poe receive but ten dollars for his Raven; Oscar Wilde retails his fleshly stuff at a guinea a line. But harken to Mr. Sartain:

“The Stylus was short-lived; yet it existed fully long enough to make a host of enemies for its editor. He did, indeed, execute what the prospectus said would be the journal's chief purpose — a severe and fearless opinion, and absolutely independent criticism, a criticism self-sustained, holding itself aloof from all bias, and acknowledging no fear save that of outraging Right.” He did it conscientiously — severely criticised the literary labors of his nearest friends, and that sort of thing won't do, you know, unless the reviewer can afford it. When Griswold's ‘Poets and Poetry of America’ came out (for the MS. Of which, by-th-by, it may not be uninteresting to some to know, that the Doctor told me, he received, $1,000, and 12 1/2 cents for every volume he sold) Poe penned a caustic critique of the work and an analysis of his companion's style, in a perfectly dispassionate and impersonal spirit. Griswold's indignation was extreme. Poe, all unconscious, or at least forgetful of the affair, actually created Griswold, as I said, his literary executor. Did you ever hear of such innocence? I remember that shortly after Poe's death, Griswold was sitting here talking to me, when Thomas Dunne [[Dunn]] English (the author of Ben Bolt, etc.), came in. I kept on conversing with both of them, but, at length, notice that they appeared singularly reserved, and never addressed each other. Then it occurred to me that they were perhaps unacquainted, and sure enough they were. After the introduction, they still failed to harmonize, but sat studying each other silently and curiously until, thinking to broach a familiar and friendly topic, I casually mentioned the name of Poe. It amused me to see how they started from their stolidity at the magic sound, and vied in denouncing their common foe.”

Here the affable artist indulged in a quite little laugh, soaked the moisture from Washington's head, and gazing more soberly [column 4:] through the window into the open, sunny area, said:

“But before I tell you of that last mad visit from Poe, come with me into my atelier. I generally engrave two plates at a time, alternating between them, so I should rest awhile on this one; especially since I gouged until long after twelve last night.”

An amazing studio it is, and flooded with light. The floor, half the roof, and all that side having an ingenious arrangement of cords, which drop numerous narrow curtains of an olive tint just as the artist may wish to regulate the light in the room. Against the walls, on pedestals, and in corner brackets is a multitude of fine models, — shallow glass cases containing miniature “Elgin Marbles,” (those superb copies of the wonderful bas-reliefs on the Parthenon); and alto relievo mould of the most famous crucifix; the powerful, hairy, impossible head of the Jupiter Olympus, standing on top of a bookcase, filled with precious, dog-eared volumes; a plaster copy, on a white pedestal, of the great Cupid ascribed to Praxiteles — the beautiful, indelicate Phryne; a bust of Sartain himself without the slightest present resemblance, and a host of arms, legs and torsos. The largest of the oil paintings, is Boyle's portrait of General Frank Blair, to whom St. Louis is now erecting a statue; and that city has opened a correspondence with Mr. Sartain, with a view to its purchase. Strewn around the room, in racks, in monstrous folios, within huge covers of boards, stacked on the floor — everywhere — are choice engravings of every age and nation. Next to that of the famous Philadelphia connoisseur, James L. Claghorn, this is the most complete collection of prints in the country. Perhaps it is the most historical and progressive; but Mr. Sartain regards his prizes purely from an artistic standpoint, and has lessened the market value of many, one-half, by clipping off their names and dates. I never passed a more agreeable hour than this, during with Mr. Sartain displayed to me his wealth of prints, from the early line engravings of Botticelli to the exquisite flesh tints of Bartolozzi's “Clyte and Cupid.”

“I think,” said he, “that you are now looking at the perfection fo work in line engraving and etching — Golding's Princess Charlotte, after Lawrence. It was four years on the engraver's table, and yet you will not find his name in any of the dictionaries. Ah! who can forecast the fate of an artist? You noticed that portrait of my father-in-law, John Swaine, the engraver, by Lesley? Well, I paid $150 for it; it is now worth a thousand; and yet Charles Lesley once clerked in a store up on Chestnut street. Take my London friend, Geo. Richmond, Ruskin's predecessor in the art chair at Oxford. Here he sends me two of his little etchings, and a portrait of myself, executed by him many years ago. Since then he has painted more than 4,000 pictures, he writes, and you can imagine for what a princely sum. It all seems a dream to me. Yes, I have met Ruskin. During the rebellion I called on him at Camberwell, a part of London that was then quite out in the country:

You know. He laughed when I praised his first book on art. ‘A boyish effort, a boyish effort,’ he protested. He has a peculiar cockney pronunciation, and remarked that he had been very much interested in the progress of our ‘waw.’ ”

Mr. Sartain, what is your opinion of Whistler? Don't you think he holds somewhat of the same position in art that Walt Whitman does in literature?

Well — yes. The pencil, you know, can be as whimsical as the pen. However, a sensationalist, like Whistler, never acquires a permanent place in art; never has any disciples. It is affection to admire three-quarters of his unintelligible ‘studies.’ But let an artist once become famous, or notorious, and his fortune is made. There is Herkemer, the Englishman. Show me another manufacturer who reaps such a profit on his goods. For he fairly manufactures his $2,500 portraits. Only two months has he been in this country, and yet I assure you that he has signed receipts for over $15,000.”

Thus pleasantly the artist chatted on, I listening as well as the manifold attractions of the studio would permit, for there stood a cabinet of curios — but, tut, tut! how this verbose pen runs riot with valuable space. I was about to tell you of the stick of the columite, that quivering, elastic sandstone of the Carolinas; and the beautiful pearls from Japan, which you know are ingeniously formed by the natives indenting pieces of thin copper into the selected designs, and casting these between the oysters’ shells when they have occasion to gap; whereupon, to protect themselves from the sharp edges of the unusual, the innocent bivalves cover it with their precious enamel, and —— but, there it is again, and I had better stop at once, else this terrible “association of ideas” invented by Mr. Locke will be the ruin of me, and of Texas journalism.

So here, without further preface, is what Mr. Sartain told me of his last strange experience with Poe.

“How well I recollect that afternoon, nearly forty years ago,” said he, “when Poe, apparently in a high state of excitement, his hair tossed about his forehead, and a wild look in his eyes, burst into my workroom, then on the first floor.

“ ‘Sartain,’ he said ‘I could tell a tale that you and the nineteenth century would refuse to believe. I have fled from those who want to murder me! I heard them plotting on the train from New York. They sat in the seat back of me, and hatched the whole scheme. To kill me, yes, to kill me! They got off at Bordentown, and I must hide.’

“Why was it necessary that they should alight at Bordentown?” I asked him.

“He gave no heed to the question, but remained in a distracted frame of mind; saying, where could he hide from the conspirators, and frantically urging his deadly peril. I assured him that he could stay with me as long as he wished, and tried to quite him by making light of his fears. But no, they were still on his track, and he begged me piteously for a razor or some laudanum, pleading in an incoherent way, that he must instantly shave off his moustache as an extra precaution. Of course it would have been folly to have offered him a stimulant — even coffee was too powerful a beverage for Poe — and as I did not shave, there was fortunately a good reason for not entrusting him with a razor. But he became so violent that at last I led him upstairs into the bath-room, and took off the moustache with, myself, with a pair of scissors. After supper, he insisted upon walking out, and as I needed exercise, I willingly agreed to accompany him, but an obstacle presented itself in the shape of his trodden-down shoes, which were chafing his feet painfully. As I had no spare pair for him, he was forced to put on my slippers, and so we started forth. This was before the day of railroads or street cars, and we boarded one of the Callowhill line of busses for Fairmount. Arriving there, we sauntered along the river bank, I keeping carefully on the outside with my arm through his, until we came to the straight, wooden staircase at the foot of the waterworks, which we ascended [column 5:] and took seats at the top. I had hoped for a repetition of the beautiful moonlight we had had the evening before, but heavy clouds gathered in the sky, and we were soon in inky darkness. Then, while the Schuylkill below us rolled over the falls, with a solemn, booming accompaniment, Poe talked like a madman. The one theme which still possessed his fanciful mind was the terrible conspiracy on foot to destroy him, and the swift words poured forth with an indescribable eloquence.

“ ‘They have put me in prison,’ said he, on a lying charge of theft — theft of a $50 bill, and I swear to you that I was wholly innocent.’

“He had indeed been incarcerated in Moyamensing over night. I afterward learned that it was for drunkenness, not theft, and when he was brought before the magistrate next morning, that astounded official exclaimed, ‘Why, it's Poe the poet!’ and forthwith ordered his discharge. But as we sat there on the glooming summit of Fairmount, his over excited imagination wove nothing but the strangest conceits.

“ ‘Here!’ he said, ‘I stood in my cell, gazing through the iron bars, while the moon came out in a silvery glory, and its soft beams glinted down till the horrid dungeon was half luminous. Then, I suddenly saw standing on the granite parapet, bathed in this white glow, the figure of a beautiful woman arrayed in flowing robes; and she asked me wonderful questions, which, if I failed to answer correctly, would damn me to an eternity of woe and misery, worse than the annihilation of hell!’

“I am sorry,” broke off Mr. Sartain, “that I cannot recall these questions — more wild and weird than any of the fervid imageries that ever dropped from his pen, and delivered in such tones that our lonely station seemed people with an audience from the spirit world.’

“ ‘She showed me.’ he kept on, ‘some of the terrible torments I would have to undergo. Ah! what a sight! Great caldrons of boiling liquor, steaming and fizzling in the moonlight. But I saw the trap set by the conspirators, and tole her so, boldly! If I once faltered, down, down she would plunge me to the chin in the burning brandy, there to squirm, like Tantalus, with parched throat, starting eye-balls and agonies of pain. Then a pack of demons brought my mother to the cauldron, chopped off her feet before my eyes, then her knees, her thighs, her arms, and at last plunged the poor, bleeding trunk into the reeking, boiling caldron.’

“By his mother,” observed Mr. Sartain, “Poe intended Mrs. Clemm. I do not know the precise relations which existed between the, but he once or twice referred to her as tempting him. At any rate, she was a strong friend and comforter; and I recollect his remarking one day, with strange prescience, that he had not long for this world, and would like to secure for his mother (Mrs. Clemm) the original portrait of himself by Osgood, whose wife was then writing for my magazine, and which I had engraved. But to return. How he talked in Fairmount.

until, as the pitchy night wore on, I deemed it better to get him away. ‘Let us go now,’ I said, and without waiting for any possible objection, I put myself on the outside of the stairway and let him down. Once started there was no stopping. ‘Go on, go on!’ he plead excitedly. So I managed to direct our footsteps to the omnibus stand, where, with a gentle push of my leg, I half forced him in, and before he could recover from his surprise, we [[then made???] our way back [[to the???]] city. Once [[there???] all his terror returned with double force. He begged again for laudanum, and thinking to quiet his misgivings and alley his nervousness, I gave him a slight does of opium. He soon fell into a troubled sleep, and as we had no spare chamber that night, I stayed with him in the studio. Next day his disordered brain was in no wise calmer. He was still hiding in imagination. ‘Poe.’ I said, ‘you are laboring under a monstrous delusion. Believe me you are not in the slightest danger, and if anyone is pursuing you, I am sure you are perfectly safe here, housed in with me.’ ‘Yes,’ he exclaimed, ‘but I can't stay. It is unreasonable. I will not sponge on you longer.’ ‘Sponge?’ replied I, ‘you know you are entirely welcome here.’ ‘No, no, I could see your family resented my presence at the table, and I overheard your son complaining in the front room.’ ‘Why, Poe!’ I urged, ‘are you mad? Except for meals we have not left the library to-day for one minute, and how could you overhear a conversation through two rooms, three doors, a stateroom and a corridor? Why it is as preposterous as Sam Weller's ‘double-hextra’ eye-sight.’ ‘What!’ He angrily retorted , ‘didn't I tell you of the woman fiend on the parapet? And if I understand her, can't you see how easy it is for me to distinguish human voices?” All my pleading was of no avail. Hallucination, phantasmagoria! he indignantly rejected such consolation, and refused to converse with me. Later in the day he contrived to escape from the house.

“It appears that he wandered aimlessly through the streets, until utterly fagged out he threw himself down in an open pleasant field way out in the northern suburbs, and at last obtained the repose which his shattered nerves so sorely needed. ‘I lay there,’ he told me that night, ‘with my face buried in the grass’ it's sweet odor, with the smell of the soil, and all their many memories, slowly cleared my mind. I remember nothing — not even your identity — save the remonstrance of some ‘guardian angel.’ I am certain that it was the train of feelings induced by the odor of the earth and grass, which restored me to my proper senses.’ ‘And so do I,’ solemnly added Mr. Sartain.

“The balance of my story is brief. Next day he started forth again to secure some linen, which a kind friend, he said, had promised to have washed for him. Returning with this done up into a small bundle, he borrowed some money of me, promising speedy payment (which I, of course, felt to be impossible), and left at once for Baltimore. Once month later he fell in with that gang of monumental roughs, incapable of appreciating or pitying his sensitive organism; those shameful gutter scenes followed with an attack similar to the one I witnessed; and in a few days, within the walls of a hospital, Poe's despairing soul fluttered and went out.”

As Mr. Sartain accompanied me to the door, he paused before an antique panel hung low on the corridor wall. Its distemper colors were so dim that only the faint outlines of the figures, a Madonna, were distinguishable.

“This,” said he, “is four and a half centuries old. It is the work of Ghirlandaliaza, the master of Michael Angelo. No, it is not particularly pleasant to look at, but if I had only the spare time I could soon transform it into a thing of beauty. All those dull, “foxy” tints, with a few minutes’ labor, would become rich, glowing masses of crimson. For years I have intended to bring them out, but even such a short allowance of leisure has not yet been vouchsafed to me. It is as much as I can do to occasionally smuggle an hour for my King Solomon, the [column 6:] worn-off plate of which I am trying to re-engrave.”

So it was no small kindness of Mr. Sartain, as I told him, to devote these precious hours to our entertainment, dear reader, at the expense of old Ghirlandaliaza.

MELVILLE P HILIPS.