f childhood requires no external world of incident
to occupy or amuse it. The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to
bed; the connings, the recitations, the periodical half-holidays and
perambulations, the playground, with its broils, its pastimes, its
intrigues--these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made to
involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, a
universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and
spirit-stirring, _'Oh, le bon temps, que ce siecle de fer!'"_

From this world of boyish imagination Poe was called to his adopted
parents' home in the United States. He returned to America in 1821, and
was speedily placed in an academy in Richmond, Virginia, in which city
the Allans continued to reside. Already well grounded in the elementary
processes of education, not without reputation on account of his
European residence, handsome, proud, and regarded as the heir of a
wealthy man, Poe must have been looked up to with no little respect by
his fellow pupils. He speedily made himself a prominent position in the
school, not only by his classical attainments, but by his athletic
feats--accomplishments calculated to render him a leader among lads.

"In the simple school athletics of those days, when a gymnasium had
not been heard of, he was 'facile princeps',"

is the reminiscence of his fellow pupil, Colonel T. L. Preston. Poe he
remembers as

"a swift runner, a wonderful leaper, and, what was more rare, a boxer,
with some slight training.... He would allow the strongest boy in the
school to strike him with full force in the chest. He taught me the
secret, and I imitated him, after my measure. It was to inflate the
lungs to the uttermost, and at the moment of receiving the blow to
exhale the air. It looked surprising, and was, indeed, a little rough;
but with a good breast-bone, and some resolution, it was not difficult
to stand it. For swimming he was noted, being in many of his athletic
proclivities surprisingly like Byron in his youth."

In one of his feats Poe only came off second best.

"A challenge to a foot race," says Colonel Preston, "had been passed
between the two classical schools of the city; we selected Poe as our
champion. The race came off one bright May morning at sunrise, in the
Capitol Square. Historical truth compels me to add that on this
occasion our school was beaten, and we had to pay up our small bet