in the summer of 1839, removed to Philadelphia, then the literary
center of the United States.

Of his business experiences while here--his successes and
disappointments--his quarrels with certain editors and literary men and
his friendly relations with others, his biographers have informed us.
But it is in his home and private life that we are interested.

Their financial circumstances at this time must have been deplorable,
for they had to borrow money to enable them to remove to Philadelphia.
Under the circumstances, to take board was impracticable; and it appears
from the reminiscences of certain neighbors, that they for some time
occupied very poor lodgings in an obscure street in the vicinity of a
market. But Poe was much more successful here than in New York, and we
find them in the following spring established in a home of their own in
a locality known as _Spring Garden_, a quiet suburb far from the dust
and noise of the city.

Some one has recently taken pains to hunt out with infinite patience and
perseverance this house, which the Poes occupied for nearly five years.
It was an ordinary framed Dutch-roofed building, with but three rooms on
the ground floor, and under the eaves little horizontal strips of
windows on a level with the floor, which could scarcely have admitted
light and air. But there was, when they took possession, a bit of grassy
side yard which had once been part of a garden, and a porch over which
grew a straggling rose-bush. This latter Mrs. Clemm's skillful hands
carefully pruned and trained, thus winning for the humble abode the
title still applied to it of "The poet's rose-embowered cottage," to
which some enthusiast has added, "Where Poe and his idolized Virginia
dreamed their divine dream of love."

To a lady who was at this time a resident of Spring Garden we are
indebted for a glimpse of the Poes in this their quiet and half-rural
abode.

"Twice a day, on my way to and from school," she said, "I had to pass
their house, and in summer time often saw them. In the mornings Mrs.
Clemm and her daughter would be generally watering the flowers, which
they had in a bed under the windows. They seemed always cheerful and
happy, and I could hear Mrs. Poe's laugh before I turned the corner.
Mrs. Clemm was always busy. I have seen her of mornings clearing the
front yard, washing the windows and the stoop, and even white-washing
the palings. You would notice how clean and orderly everything loo