y and tender
man, with his playful mood and his affectionate consideration for those
whom he loved--even for _Catalina_--the "morbid and enigmatical" being
that the world chooses to imagine him--the gloomy wanderer amid "the
ghoul-haunted regions of Weir," the despairing soul forever brooding
over the memory of his lost Lenore? And how readily he yields himself to
the enjoyment of the moment; how cheerful he is in a situation which
would depress any other man--a stranger in a strange city, just making a
new start in life, with "four dollars and a half" to begin with! Surely
there is something most pathetic in all this as we see it from Poe's own
unconscious pen; with the purchase of the twenty-five-cent umbrella to
shield "Sissy" from the rain, the two buttons and the skein of thread,
and, ever mindful of Sissy's comfort, the tin pan for the stove. The
picture is invaluable as enabling us to understand the true characters
of Poe and his wife and the peculiar relations existing between
them--Virginia, trustful, loving and happy, and Poe, all kindness and
protective tenderness for his little "Sissy." We look upon it as a
life-like photograph, clear and distinct in every line; Poe with the
traces of care and anxiety for the time swept away from his face, and
Virginia--as she is described at this time--a woman grown, but "looking
not more than fourteen," plump and smiling, with her bright, black eyes
and full pouting lips. It is Poe himself who reveals her character as no
other has done, when he says that, though "delighted" with her new
experience and situation, she yet "had a hearty cry," childlike, missing
her mother and her cat.

It would have been well for them could they have remained at this model
"cheap" boarding-house, where they were so well provided for. But it was
beyond their means, with board for three persons; and so they look about
for "two rooms," and when ready send for Mrs. Clemm and Catalina. Two
rooms for the three; in one of which Mrs. Clemm must perform all her
domestic operations of cooking and laundering, for, as we afterwards
learn, Poe was indebted to his mother-in-law for that "immaculate linen"
in which, howsoever shabby the outer garments, he invariably appeared.
And despite the threadbare suit, he was always, it was said, as well
groomed and scrupulously neat as the most fastidious gentleman could be.

That in New York Poe did not at first succeed according to his
expectations is rendered evi