injury, he was in the habit of speaking
disrespectfully of the ladies of his acquaintance. It is difficult for me
to believe this; for to _me_, to whom he came during the year of our
acquaintance for counsel and kindness in all his many anxieties and
griefs, he never spoke irreverently of any woman save one, and then only
in _my_ defense; and though I rebuked him for his momentary
forgetfulness of the respect due to himself and to me, I could not but
forgive the offense for the sake of the generous impulse which prompted
it. Yet even were these sad rumors true of him, the wise and
well-informed knew how to regard, as they would the impetuous anger of a
spoiled infant, balked of its capricious will, the equally harmless and
unmeaning phrensy of that stray child of Poetry and Passion. For the few
unwomanly and slander-loving gossips who have injured _him_ and
_themselves_ only by _repeating_ his ravings, when in such moods they
have accepted his society. I have only to vouchsafe my wonder and my
pity. They cannot surely harm the true and pure, who, reverencing his
genius, and pitying his misfortunes and his errors, endeavored, by their
timely kindness and sympathy, to soothe his sad career.

"It was in his own simple yet poetical home, that to me the character of
Edgar Poe appeared in its most beautiful light. Playful, affectionate,
witty, alternately docile and wayward as a petted child-for his young,
gentle, and idolized wife, and for all who came, he had, even in the
midst of his most harassing literary duties, a kind word, a pleasant
smile, a graceful and courteous attention. At his desk, beneath the
romantic picture of his loved and lost Lenore, he would sit, hour after
hour, patient, assiduous, and uncomplaining, tracing, in an exquisitely
clear chirography, and with almost superhuman swiftness, the lightning
thoughts--the 'rare and radiant' fancies as they flashed through his
wonderful and ever-wakeful brain. I recollect, one morning, toward the
close of his residence in this city, when he seemed unusually gay and
light-hearted. Virginia, his sweet wife, had written me a pressing
invitation to come to them; and I, who never could resist her
affectionate summons, and who enjoyed his society far more in his own
home than elsewhere, hastened to Amity-street. I found him just
completing his series of papers entitled 'The Literati of New York.'
'See,' said he, displaying, in laughing triumph, several little rolls of
nar