His wife's health, which had always been delicate, was failing rapidly and Poe was sub-

LITERATI- HE AND IJTHHAKV MEN.

hi.s cottage- His

jected to the agony ol' seeing her lading, day by day, without the means at hand to minister properly to her comfort. His necessities were finally made known by some friendly hand in the newspapers and a subscription was raised in his behalf. But, although his sufterings were extreme, he must have had many gleams of happiness in the little old-fashioned cottage at Fordham. It is a quaint little structure, a story and a half high, with a white shingled gable-end toward the street and a porch on one side. It is perched on the top of a hill and is surrounded by old fruittrees, mossy stone walls and thickets of brambles and flowers. In one of his papers on the Literati, Poe severely criticised Dr. Thoma.s Dunn English, who retorted in a personal article which was reproduced in the Evening Mirror. Poe thereupon sued for libel and recovered from the Mirror several hundred dollars, with which he refitted life at this time was one of singular domestic tranquillity and sweetness. His mother-inlaw, Mrs. Clemm, who seems to have been much attached to him, watched over him with tender kindness and solicitude, and managed the affairs of the little household with great skill and prudence. Poe's affection for his wife and her mother is the one bright spot in his sombre life. In a tender letter of June 12, 184(5, to his wife he speaks of Mrs. Clemm as " our mother," and declares that liis "dear Virginia " is his "greatest and only stimulus now, to battle with this uncongenial, unsatisfactory and ungrateful life.'" Nearly all the personal reminiscence.* of Poe which tell of his life at Fordham are of a bright and pleasing character.