s
visits to her were resumed, though in a very quiet manner. It seems
certain that the engagement was then renewed, and that Mrs. Shelton must
have promised to assist Poe in his literary enterprise; for from that
time he was enthusiastic in regard to the _Stylus_ and what he termed
its "assured success." He even commenced arranging a _Table of Contents_
for the first number of the magazine; and Mrs. Mackenzie told me how he
one morning spent an hour in her room taking from her information, notes
and _data_ for an article which he intended to appear in one of its
earliest numbers. He was in high spirits, and declared that he had never
felt in better health. This was after an attack of serious illness, due
to his association with dissipated companions. Tempted as he was on
every side and wherever he went in the city, it was not strange that he
had not always the strength of will to resist; and twice during this
visit to Richmond he was subject to attacks somewhat similar to those
which he had known at Fordham, and through which he was now kindly
nursed by his friends at Duncan Lodge.

Poe gave but one public lecture on this visit to Richmond--that on "The
Poetic Principle"--and of this most exaggerated accounts have been
given by several writers, even to the present day, they representing it
to have been a great financial success. One recent lecturer remarks upon
the strangeness of the fate when, just as the hitherto impecunious poet
was "about returning home with five thousand and five hundred dollars in
his pocket, he should have been robbed of it all." The truth of the
matter is that but two hundred and fifty tickets were printed, the price
being fifty cents each, and, as Dr. William Gibbon Carter informed me,
there were by actual count not more than one hundred persons present at
the lecture, some being holders of complimentary tickets. Another
account says there were but sixty present, but that they were of the
very _elite_ of the city. Considering that from the proceeds of the
lecture all expenses of hall rent had to be paid, we cannot wonder at
Poe's writing to Mrs. Clemm, "My poor, poor Muddie, I am yet unable to
send you a single dollar."

I was present at this lecture, with my mother and sister and Rose Poe,
who as we took seats reserved for us, left her party and joined us. I
noticed that Poe had no manuscript, and that, though he stood like a
statue, he held his audience as motionless as himself--fascinated b