liquor is not used, I should think there was some hope for you.
But, if you go to a tavern, or to any place where it is used at table,
you are not safe. You have fine talents, Edgar, and you ought to have
them respected, as well as yourself. Learn to respect yourself, and you
will soon find that you are respected. Separate yourself from the bottle,
and from bottle companions, forever. Tell me if you can and will do so.
If you again become an assistant in my office, it must be understood that
all engagements on my part cease the moment you get drunk. I am your true
friend, T. W. W."

A new contract was arranged, but Poe's irregularities frequently
interrupted the kindness and finally exhausted the patience of his
generous though methodical employer, and in the number of the "Messenger"
for January, 1837 he thus took leave of its readers:

"Mr. Poe's attention being called in another direction, he will decline,
with the present number, the editorial duties of the Messenger. His
Critical Notices for this month end with Professor Anthon's Cicero-what
follows is from another hand. With the best wishes to the magazine, and
to its few foes as well as many friends, he is now desirous of bidding
all parties a peaceful farewell."

While in Richmond, with an income of but five hundred dollars a year, he
had married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, a very amiable and lovely girl,
who was as poor as himself, and little fitted, except by her gentle
temper, to be tho wife of such a person. He went from Richmond to
Baltimore; and after a short time, to Philadelphia, and to New York. A
slight acquaintance with Dr. Hawks had led that acute and powerful writer
to invite his contributions to the "New York Review," and he had
furnished for the second number of it (for October, 1837) an elaborate
but not very remarkable article upon Stephens's then recently published
"Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petrea, and the Holy Land." His
abilities were not of the kind demanded for such work, and he never wrote
another paper for this or for any other Review of the same class. He had
commenced in the "Literary Messenger," a story of the sea under the title
of "Arthur Gordon Pym"[A], and upon the recommendation of Mr. Paulding
and others, it was printed by the Harpers. It is his longest work, and is
not without some sort of merit, but it received little attention. The
publishers sent one hundred copies to England, and being mistaken at
first for a