ed Byron."

Mrs. Clarke said she had seldom seen a good likeness of Poe. The best
she had cut from an old magazine. "This engraving," she said, showing
it, reflects at once the fastidiousness and the virility characteristic
of his temperament. All the others have an expression pitiably weak.
His worst calumniators could hardly desire for him a harder fate than
the continual reproduction of that feeble visage. When he had money he
was lavish and over-generous with it. He was always refined. You felt it
in his very presence. And as long as I knew him, and as much as I was
with him, I never saw him in the least intoxicated. I have seen him when
he had had enough wine to make him talk with even more than his usual
brilliancy. Indeed, to talk in a large general company, some little
stimulant was necessary to him. Dr. Griswold says he was arrogant,
dogmatic and impatient of contradiction. I have heard him engage in
discussions frequently; oftenest with diffidence, always with
consideration for others. In a large company it was only when
exhilarated with wine that he spoke out his views and ideas with any
degree of self-assertion."

Mrs. Clarke said that his sister, Rosalie, was rather pretty and
resembled himself somewhat in appearance, but "was as different as
possible in mental capacity. She was amiable, patient and
sweet-tempered, but as a companion wholly tiresome and monotonous. She
seemed to have had little or no individuality or force of character. She
thought a great deal of her brother, but during the greater part of
their lives they had seen nothing of each other. The family of Mr.
Mackenzie treated her affectionately and kindly, and until the breaking
up of the household she remained with them, and then went to Baltimore
to her relatives, the Poes. I don't know what became of her afterwards."

Mrs. Clarke speaks of Poe's reading and lectures during his first visit
to Richmond; but these were mere small social entertainments at the
houses of various acquaintances. He really gave but one public lecture
during this visit to Richmond. One evening at Mrs. Mackenzie's she said
to him: "Edgar, since people appear so eager to hear you repeat _The
Raven_, why not give a public recital, which might benefit you
financially?" Being further urged, he finally yielded. One hundred
tickets were advertised, at fifty cents each, and the music hall of the
fashionable Exchange Hotel engaged for the occasion. On the appointed
evenin