I swam from Ludlam's
Wharf to Warwick (six miles), in a hot June sun, against one of the
strongest tides ever known in the river. It would have been a feat
comparatively easy to swim twenty miles in still water. I would not
think much," Poe added in a strain of exaggeration not unusual with him,
"of attempting to swim the British Channel from Dover to Calais."
Colonel Mayo, who had tried to accompany him in this performance, had to
stop on the way, and says that Poe, when he reached the goal, emerged
from the water with neck, face, and back blistered. The facts of this
feat, which was undertaken for a wager, having been questioned, Poe,
ever intolerant of contradiction, obtained and published the affidavits
of several gentlemen who had witnessed it. They also certified that Poe
did not seem at all fatigued, and that he walked back to Richmond
immediately after the performance.

The poet is generally remembered at this part of his career to have been
slight in figure and person, but to have been well made, active, sinewy,
and graceful. Despite the fact that he was thus noted among his
schoolfellows and indulged at home, he does not appear to have been in
sympathy with his surroundings. Already dowered with the "hate of hate,
the scorn of scorn," he appears to have made foes both among those who
envied him and those whom, in the pride of intellectuality, he treated
with pugnacious contempt. Beneath the haughty exterior, however, was a
warm and passionate heart, which only needed circumstance to call forth
an almost fanatical intensity of affection. A well-authenticated
instance of this is thus related by Mrs. Whitman:

"While at the academy in Richmond, he one day accompanied a schoolmate
to his home, where he saw, for the first time, Mrs. Helen Stannard,
the mother of his young friend. This lady, on entering the room, took
his hands and spoke some gentle and gracious words of welcome, which
so penetrated the sensitive heart of the orphan boy as to deprive him
of the power of speech, and for a time almost of consciousness itself.
He returned home in a dream, with but one thought, one hope in life
--to hear again the sweet and gracious words that had made the
desolate world so beautiful to him, and filled his lonely heart with
the oppression of a new joy. This lady afterwards became the confidant
of all his boyish sorrows, and hers was the one redeeming influence
that saved and guided him in the ea