mal, he looked about for a refuge from the Silence and
the Solitude that gave him chase, but he knew that however fast he might
flee they would be hard on his heels.

How white she was--and how still! Nevermore to hear the sounds of her
low sweet voice, nevermore to hear her merry laughter, nevermore her
light foot-step that--like her voice and her laugh--was music to his
ears! Nevermore!--for she was wrapped in the Silence--the last great
silence of all.

Nevermore would she sit beside him as he worked, or plant flowers about
the door, or lay her hand in his and explore with him the wonderful
dream-valley; nevermore lay her sweet lips upon his or raise the
snow-white lids from her eyes and shine on him from under their long,
jetty fringes. Henceforth a Solitude as vast as the Silence would be his
portion.

Their sweet friend Marie Louise Shew robed her for the tomb and over the
snow they bore her to rest in a vault in the village churchyard.

Then, for many weeks Edgar Poe lay in the bed-chamber under the roof,
desperately ill--for the most part unconscious. The mother bereaved of
her child had no time to give herself over to mourning, for as she had
wrestled with death for the possession of a son when he was first given
into her keeping, even more fiercely did she wrestle now that he must be
son and daughter too. The kind friends who had made Virginia's last days
comfortable aided her in the battle, and finally the victory was
won,--pale, shaken, wraith-like, the personification of woe made
beautiful--The Dreamer came forth into the air of heaven once more, and
as spring opened was to be seen, as of old, walking among the pines or
beside the river.

And ever and anon his clear-cut, chastened features and his great,
solemn eyes were turned skyward--especially at night when the heavens
were sown with stars; for from some one of those bright worlds,
peradventure, would she whose absence made the Solitude and the Silence
be looking down upon him. And as he gazed and dreamed, high thoughts
took form in his brain--thoughts of the "Material and Spiritual
Universe; its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition
and its Destiny,"--thoughts to be made into a book dedicated to "Those
who feel rather than to those who think--to the dreamers and those who
put faith in dreams as in the only realities"--thoughts for his
projected work, "Eureka!" Out of the Silence and the Solitude came the
development and complet