e time, and the most brilliant of them all.

A consideration which doubtless chiefly influenced him in this choice
was that Mrs. Whitman, being a lady of literary taste and independent
means, would be likely to take an interest in the _Stylus_, the hope of
establishing which he had never abandoned, and would assist him in
carrying out his plans in regard to it.

Of Mrs. Whitman, at this time about forty-five years of age, I have the
following account from a lady--Mrs. F. H. Kellogg--whose mother was an
intimate friend and near neighbor of hers in Providence:

"She was considered very eccentric--impulsive and regardless of
conventionalities. She dressed always in white, and on the coldest
winter evenings, with snow on the ground, would cross over to our house
in thin slippers and with nothing on her head but a thin, gauzy, white
scarf. She probably thought this aesthetic--and perhaps it was. There was
one thing which I must not omit to mention, because it was a part of
herself--_ether_. The scent accompanied her everywhere. It was said she
could not write except under its influence, but of this I do not know."

As an illustration of her impulsive ways, Mrs. Kellogg says:

"I was one evening, when a little girl, sitting on the front steps when
she and her sister, Miss Powers, crossed over to our house. They went
into the parlor, and I heard Mrs. Whitman ask my sister to sing for her
_The Mocking Bird_. She appreciated my sister's beautiful singing, but
on this occasion, while she was in the very midst of '_Listen to the
Mocking Bird_,' suddenly a cloud of white rushed past me like a tornado,
and I heard Mrs. Whitman's voice exclaiming excitedly, '_I have it! I
have it!_' Of course, we were all astonished and could not understand it
at all, until Miss Powers afterward explained it to us. It seems that
the beautiful music and singing had excited in her some poetic thought
or idea; and, regardless or forgetful of conventionalities, she had
impulsively rushed home to put it in writing, or perhaps in poetry,
before it should vanish away."

Miss Sarah Jacobs, one of Griswold's "_Female Poets_," and a friend of
Mrs. Whitman, describes her as small and dark, with deep-set dreamy eyes
"that looked above and beyond but never _at_ you;" quick, bird-like
motions, and as being a believer in occult influences, as Poe himself
professed to be. "For all the sweet, poetic fragrance of her nature, she
took an interest in common things.