ad of at his office, to inquire
the fate of a certain "_Ode_" which he had sent to the _Broadway
Journal_ for publication. Necessarily he was received in the front room,
which was Virginia's. The following is his account of the visit:

"Poe received me with the courtesy habitual with him when he was
himself, and gave me to understand that my _Ode_ would be published in
the next number of his paper.... What did he look like?... He was
dressed in black from head to foot, except, of course, that his linen
was spotlessly white.... The most noticeable things about him were his
high forehead, dark hair and sharp, black eye. His cousin-wife, always
an invalid, was lying on a bed between himself and me. She never
stirred, but her mother came out of the back parlor and was introduced
to me by her courtly nephew."

Stoddard is here mistaken in his description of Poe's eyes. They were
neither sharp nor black, but large, soft, dreamy eyes, of a fine
steel-gray, clear as crystal, and with a jet-black pupil, which would in
certain lights expand until the eyes appeared to be all black. Stoddard
continues:

"I saw Poe once again, and for the last time. It was a rainy afternoon,
such as we have in our November, and he was standing under an awning
waiting for the shower to pass over. My conviction was that I ought to
offer him my umbrella and go home with him, but I left him standing
there, and there I see him still, and shall always, poor and penniless,
but proud, reliant, dominant. May the gods forgive me! I never can
forgive myself."

In April, five months after this time, Poe's old habits unfortunately
returned upon him. Mr. Lowell one day, in passing through New York,
called to see him, when Mrs. Clemm excused his "strange actions" by
frankly stating that "Edgar was not himself that day." She afterward
made the same statement to Mr. Briggs, whose assistant editor Poe was,
and who writes, June, 1845, to Lowell: "I believe he had not drank
anything for more than eighteen months until the last three months, and
concludes that he would have to dispense with his services. The matter
was settled, however, by Poe's proposing to buy the _Broadway Journal_,
hoping to make of it in a measure what he had desired for the _Stylus_.
The prospect seemed to promise fair enough for its success, and Mr.
Greeley and Mr. Griswold each generously contributed a sum of fifty
dollars; but the plan finally failed for want of sufficient funds,
George Po