QUIET LIFE AT FORDHAM.
The beginning of this year was a dreary time at the cottage at Fordham.
The resources of the family, which had been generously contributed to,
mostly by strangers and anonymously, were now exhausted, and Poe, still
ill and in wretched spirits, was not capable of the exertion necessary
to replenish them. In the preceding summer he had by a severe criticism
of Thomas Dunn English aroused the ire of that gentleman, who revenged
himself in an article for which Poe brought a suit of libel, recovering
damages to the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars--a welcome boon
in a time of need. He remained at home, applying himself to his writing,
and, mindful of Mrs. Shew's advice, abstained from stimulants and took
regular exercise on the country roads about Fordham. His frequent
companion in these walks was a priest of St. John's College, near
Fordham, who, being an educated and intellectual man, must have proven
a most congenial and welcome acquaintance. This priest, who seems to
have known Poe well, declares that he "made a superhuman struggle
against starvation," and speaks of him as a gentle and amiable man,
easily influenced by a kind word or act.
Most of his time, said Mrs. Clemm, was passed out of doors. He did not
like the loneliness of the house, and would not remain alone in the room
in which Virginia had died. When he chose to write at night, as was
sometimes the case, and was particularly absorbed in his subject, he
would have his devoted mother-in-law sit beside him, "dozing in her
chair" and at intervals supplying him with hot coffee, or Catalina, his
wife's old pet, perched upon his knee or shoulder, cheering him with her
gentle purring. Virginia's death seemed to have drawn these three more
closely together. They could thenceforth often be seen walking up and
down the garden-walk, Poe and his mother, arm-in-arm, or with their arms
about each other's waists, and Catalina staidly keeping pace with them,
rubbing and purring. Mrs. Clemm told Stoddard how, when Poe was about
this time writing "_Eureka_," he would walk at night up and down the
veranda explaining his views and dragging her along with him, "until her
teeth chattered and she was nearly frozen." It is to be feared that he
was not always sufficiently considerate of his indulgent mother-in-law.
Poe soon experienced the benefits of his restful and temperate life.
Health and spirits improved, and he began to take an interest in the
everyday things about him. As spring advanced, he and Mrs. Clemm laid
out some flower beds in the front garden and planted them with flowers
and vines given by the neighbors, until when in May the cherry tree
again blossomed the little abode assumed quite an attractive appearance.
Upon an old "settle" left by a former tenant, and which Mrs. Clemm's
skillful hands had mended and scrubbed and stained into respectability
and placed beneath the cherry tree as a garden-seat, Poe might now often
be seen reclining; gazing up into the branches, where birds and bees
flitted in and out, or talking and whistling to his own pets, a parrot
and bobolink, whose cages hung in the branches. A passer-by was
impressed by the picture presented quite early one summer morning of the
poet and his mother standing together on the green turf, smilingly
looking up and talking to these pets. Here, on the convenient _settle_,
on returning from one of his long sunrise rambles, he would rest until
summoned by his mother to his frugal breakfast.
I have at various times heard persons remark that in reading the life of
a distinguished man they have desired to know some of the lesser details
of his daily life--as, how did he dress? what did he eat? We have all
been interested in learning that General Washington liked corn bread and
fried bacon for breakfast; that Sir Walter Scott was fond of "oaten
grills with milk," and that Wordsworth's favorite lunch was bread and
raisins. As regards Poe, we must go back to his sister's account of what
his morning meal consisted of while she was at Fordham--"a pretzel and
two cups of strong coffee;" or, when there was no pretzel, the crusty
part of a loaf with a bit of salt herring as a relish. Poe had the
reputation of being a very moderate eater and of preferring simple
viands, even at the luxurious tables of his friends. He was fond of
fruit, and his sister said of buttermilk and curds, which they obtained
from their rural neighbors. But we recall his enjoyment of the "elegant"
tea-cakes at the Morrisons on Greenwich street and the fried eggs for
breakfast.
A lady who as a little girl knew Poe and his mother at this time said to
a correspondent of the _New York Commercial Advertiser_: "We lived so
near them that we saw them every day. They lived miserably, and in
abject poverty. He was naturally improvident, and but for the neighbors
they must have starved. My mother sent many a thing from her storeroom
to their table. He was not a man who drank in the common acceptation of
the term, but those were days when wine ran like water, and not to serve
it would seem niggardly. I remember that one day 'Muddie,' as Mr. Poe
called Mrs. Clemm, came to our house and asked us not to offer wine to
Edgar, as his head was weak, but that he did not like to refuse it."
As an illustration of the fascination which Poe possessed, even for
strangers, is the following letter from Mr. John DeGalliford, of
Chattanooga, Tenn., to this same New York correspondent:
"I am drawn to you by your defense of Edgar A. Poe. I love him, though I
met him but once. It was in September, 1845. I was sitting on a pile
watching our bark that was moored to the pile. A quiet, neatly-dressed
gentleman came up to me and asked me numberless questions in regard to
our seafaring life. He was so lovable in his conversation that I never
forgot him, and I prize the memory of those few hours of his sweet talk
with me and hold it sacred to his memory. He could not have been a
drinking man, for his looks did not show it. On my telling that I was a
runaway boy from Kentucky, he took some scraps of paper from his pocket
and took notes, saying that he could make a nice story of what I had
told him. I took him aboard the bark and showed him a pet monkey I had
brought from Natal. He ate a piece of biscuit and drank some cold
coffee, and said he would come again and see me and get acquainted with
my captain. This was years ago, and I am now an old man, seventy-three
years old, but I can remember, word for word, all that passed."