of the poem, regretted that he had not fully
completed before publishing it.

"If I had a copy of it here," he said, "I could show you those knotty
points of which I spoke, and which I have found it impossible to do away
with," adding: "Perhaps you will help me. I am sure that you can, if you
will."

I did not feel particularly flattered by this proposal, knowing that
since his coming to Richmond he had made a similar request of at least
two other persons. However, I cleared the table of the fruit and the
flowers and placed before him several sheets of generous foolscap, on
which I had copied for a friend _The Raven_ as it was first published.
He requested me to read it aloud, and as I did so, slowly and carefully,
he sat, pencil in hand, ready to mark the difficult passages of which he
had spoken.

I paused at the third line. Had I not myself often noted the incongruity
of representing the poet as pondering over _many_ a volume instead of a
single one? I glanced inquiringly at Mr. Poe and, noting his unconscious
look, proceeded. When I reached the line,

"And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor;"

he gave a slight shiver or shrug of the shoulders--an expressive motion
habitual to him--and the pencil came down with an emphatic stroke
beneath the six last words.

This was one of the hardest knots, he said, nor could he find a way of
getting over it. "_Ember_" was the only word rhyming with the two
preceding lines, but in no way could he dispose of it except as he had
done--thus producing the worst line in the poem.

We "pondered" over it for awhile and finally gave it up.

(But I may here mention that I have since, in studying the poem, made a
discovery which, strangely enough, seems never to have occurred to the
author. This was that in this particular stanza he had unconsciously
reversed the order or arrangement of the lines, placing those of the
triple rhymes first and the rhyming couplet last. Thus all his long
years of worry over that unfortunate "_ember_" had been unnecessary,
since the construction of the verse required not only the omission of
the word as a rhyme, but of the whole line of

"And each separate dying ember;"

when the succeeding objectionable words,

"Wrought its ghost upon the floor,"

could have been easily altered; and the addition of a third line to the
succeeding couplet would have made the stanza correct.)

Our next pause was at the word "_beast_," t