New York once more! They went by rail to Amboy and the remaining forty miles by steamboat.
Certain cities, like certain persons, are witches; they have power to cast a spell. New York is one of them.
Edgar and Virginia Poe had known hard times in New York—the bitterness of hard times in a city large enough for each man to mind his own business and leave his neighbors to mind theirs. Yet as the boat slowed down and neared the wharf, and—past the shipping—they descried the houses and spires of town looming, ghostlike, through the enveloping mist of the soft, grey April day, it was with a thrill that these two standing hand in hand—like children—upon the deck, clasped each other's fingers with closer pressure and whispered,
"New York once more!"
It was their first little journey in the world just together, just they two, and much as they loved the dear mother—their kind earthly Providence, as they laughingly called her—there was something very sweet about it. It was almost like a wedding journey. The star of hope which never deserted them for long, no matter what their disappointments and griefs might be, shone bright above their horizon—their beautiful faces reflected its light. By it the lines of care and bitterness seemed suddenly to have been smoothed out of Edgar's face, and under its influence Virginia's merry laugh rippled out upon the moist air, causing the eyes of her fellow-travellers to turn admiringly her way many times.
Her husband hovered tenderly near her, drawing her shawl with solicitous hand closer about her shoulders and standing upon the windward side of her to protect her from the damp and keen breeze. He noted with delight the fresh color of her cheeks—the life and color in her eyes.
"Do you know, Sweetheart," he said, "You have not coughed once since we left Philadelphia! The change is doing you good already."
Both were blythe as birds. As the boat tied up at the wharf a gentle shower set in, but it did not effect their spirits. He left her on board with some ladies whose acquaintance she had made during the journey, while he fared forth in the rain in quest of a boarding-house. As he stepped ashore he met a man selling second-hand umbrellas. He bought quite a substantial one for sixty-two cents and went on his way rejoicing in the lucky meeting and the good bargain.
In Greenwich Street he found what he sought—a genteel-looking house with "Boarders wanted," upon a card in the window. Another good bargain was made, and hailing a passing "hack" he hastened back to the boat for Virginia and her trunk and soon they were rattling over the cobblestones.
"Why this is quite a mansion," exclaimed the little wife, as she peered out at the house before which the carriage stopped—for while the gentility of the establishment was of the proverbial "shabby" variety, the brown-stone porch and pillars gave it an air of unmistakable dignity.
Not long after their arrival the supper-bell rang, and they found themselves responding with alacrity. When they took the seats assigned them and their hungry eyes took in the feast spread before them, they squeezed each other's hands under the table—these romantic young lovers and dreamers. They had been happy in spite of frugality. Many a time while hunger gnawed they had kissed each other and vowed they wanted nothing (high Heaven pardoning the gallant lie!) Yet now, the traveller's appetite making their palates keen—the travellers weariness in their limbs—they were seized upon by an unblushing joy at finding themselves seated at an ample board with a kindly landlady at the head pouring tea—strong and hot—whose aroma was as the breath of roses in their nostrels, while her portly and beaming spouse, at the foot, with blustering hospitality pressed the bounty of the table upon them. A bounteous table indeed, this decidedly cheap and somewhat shabby boarding-house spread, and to their eager appetites everything seemed delicious.
There were wheat bread and rye bread, butter and cheese, cold country ham and cold spring veal—generous slices of both, piled up like little mountains—and tea-cakes in like abundance.
They feasted daintily—exquisitely, as they did everything, but they feasted heartily for the first time in months.
After supper they went to their room—a spacious and comfortably, though plainly, furnished one, with a bright fire burning in a jolly little stove. Their spirits knew no bounds.
"What would Catalina say to this solid comfort, Sis?" queried Eddie. "I think she would faint for joy."
For answer Virginia smiled upon him through a mist of tears.
"Why Virginia—my Heart—" he cried in amazement. "What is it?"
"Only that it is too beautiful!" she managed to say. "And to think that Muddie and Catalina are not here to share it with us!"
"Just as soon as I can scrape together enough money to pay for Muddie's board and travelling expenses we will have them with us," he assured her.
She dried her eyes and perched upon his knee while he went through his pockets and bringing out all the money he had, counted it into her palm.
"Four dollars and a half," he said. "Not much, but we are fortunate to have that. And with such fine living as we get here so cheap it will go quite a long way. Let me see—the price of board and lodging is only three and a half a week for both of us. Seven dollars would pay our way for a fortnight—and in a fortnight's time there's no telling what may turn up! Some editor might buy 'The Raven,' or money due me for work already sold might come in. If I could only contrive to raise this sum to seven dollars we could rest easy for at least a fortnight."
"I'll tell you how," said Virginia. "You have acquaintances here—hunt up some of them and borrow three dollars. Then you would have enough to pay two weeks board ahead and fifty cents over for pocket money."
"Wise little head!" exclaimed he, tapping her brow, "The very idea!"
And forthwith all care as to ways and means was thrown from both their minds, and they gave themselves up to an evening of enjoyment of the comforts of their brown-stone mansion.
While Virginia was resting her husband went out for a little shopping to be done with part of the fifty cents they had allowed themselves for spending money. First he exchanged a few cents for a tin pan to be filled with water and placed on top of the stove, for the comfort of Virginia who had been oppressed by the dry heat. Then a few cents more went for two buttons his coat lacked, a skein of thread to sew them on with, and a skein of silk with which Virginia would mend a rent in his trousers made by too close contact with a nail on deck of the steamboat.
Next day was a bright, beautiful, spring Sunday. The sky and budding trees had the newly-washed aspect often seen after a season of rain. The sound of church-bells was on the air; the streets were filled with people in their best clothes, and the new boarders in Greenwich Street, fortified with a breakfast of ham and eggs and coffee, jubilantly joined that stream of humanity which flowed toward the point above which Trinity Church spire pierced the clear sky.
On Monday, Edgar Poe was taken with what he called a "writing fit." For several days (during which Edgar Goodfellow remained in the ascendency) the fit remained on him, and he wrote incessantly—only pausing long enough, now and then, to read the result to Virginia.
"This will earn us the money to bring Muddie and Catalina to New York," he said with confidence.
At last the manuscript was finished and no sooner was the ink dry upon the paper than he took it to The Sun, which promptly bought and paid for it, and upon the next Sunday, April 13, printed it not as a story, but as news.
"Astounding News by Express, via Norfolk!" (The headlines said). "The Atlantic crossed in Three Days." Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's Flying Machines!!!
"Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, S.C., of Mr. Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four others, in the Steering Balloon, 'Victoria,' after a passage of seventy-five hours from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the Voyage!"
Strange as it may seem, the "astounding news" was received by the people of New York for fact. There was a rush for copies of the Sun which announced with truth that it was the only paper in possession of the "news," and not until denial came from Charleston, several days later, was it suspected that the "news" was all a hoax and that Edgar Goodfellow was simply having a little fun at the expense of the public.
The story did, indeed, earn money with which to bring "Muddie" and "Catalina" to New York. It did more—it brought the editors to Greenwich Street looking for manuscript. They begged for stories as clever and as sensational as "The Balloon Hoax," but in vain. Edgar Goodfellow had vanished and in his place was Edgar the Dreamer who only had to tell of,
"A wild, weird clime that lieth sublimeOut of Space—out of Time,
Where the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past,—
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by,—
White-robed forms of friends long given
In agony to the Earth and Heaven."
It was in vain that the editors besought him to try something else in the vein of "The Balloon Hoax," assuring him that that was what his readers were expecting of him, after his recent "hit"—that was what they would be willing to pay him for—pay him well. Was it the Imp of the Perverse that caused him to positively decline, and to persist that "Dreamland" was all he had to offer just then?
It was Mr. Graham who finally accepted this quaint and beautiful poem, and who published it—in the June number of Graham's Magazine.
In October following the return of the Poes to New York—October of the year 1844—Mr. Nathaniel P. Willis who was then editor of The Evening Mirror, and had been editor of The Dollar Magazine, when it awarded the prize of a hundred dollars to "The Gold Bug," was seated at his desk in the "Mirror" office, when in response to his "Come in," a stranger appeared in his doorway—a woman—a lady in the best sense of a word almost become obsolete. A gentlewoman describes her best of all. She was a gentlewoman, then, past middle age, yet beautiful with the high type of beauty that only ripe years, beautifully lived, can bring—the beauty that compensates for the fading of the rose on cheek and lip, the dimming of the light in the eyes, for the frost on the brow—the beauty of patience, of tenderness, of faith unquenchable by fire or flood of adversity. A history was written on the face—a history in which there was plainly much of tragedy. Yet not one bitter line was there.
It was a face, withal, which could only have belonged to a mother, and might well have belonged to the mother, Niobe.
In figure she was tall and stately, with a gentle dignity. Her dress was simple to plainness, and might have been called shabby had it been less beautifully neat. It was of unrelieved black, and she wore a conventional widow's bonnet, with floating white strings.
The reader needs no introduction to this stranger to Mr. Willis, who in a gentle, well-bred voice, with a certain mournful cadence in it, announced herself as "Mrs. Clemm—the mother-in-law of Mr. Poe."
No connection with a famous author was needed to inspire Mr. Willis with respect for his visitor. She seemed to him to be an "angel upon earth," and it was with an air approaching reverence that he handed her to the most comfortable chair the office afforded.
Her errand was quickly made known. Edgar Poe was ill and not able to come out himself. His wife was an invalid, and so it devolved upon her to seek employment for him. In spite of his fame, she said, and of his industry, his manuscripts brought him so little money that he was in need of the necessities of life. Regular work with a regular income, however small, she felt to be his only hope of being able to rise above want.
Mr. Willis was distressed and promptly offered all he could. It was not much, but it was better than nothing—it was the place of assistant editor of his paper.
For months following, the figure of Edgar Poe was a familiar one in the office of the Evening Mirror. Neither in his character of Edgar the Dreamer nor that of Edgar Goodfellow was he especially known there, but simply as a modest, industrious sub-editor, doing the work of a mechanical paragraphist as quietly, as unobtrusively, as a machine. With rarely a smile and rarely a word, he stood from morning till night at his desk in a corner of the editorial room—pale, still and beautiful as a statue, punctual and efficient and the embodiment of courtesy always.
And quietly and unobtrusively his personality made itself felt. Mr. Willis came to love him for his innate charm and for his faithfulness to duty.
But the desk of a sub-editor could not long hold a genius like Edgar Poe. He bore its drudgery without complaint, but when an opening that seemed to invite his ambition, as well as to promise better pay came, he hailed it with enthusiasm. In March of the next year he formed a partnership with two New York journalists, as editors and managers of The Broadway Journal. A few months later saw him sole proprietor as well as editor, and for a short, bright period his old dream of a magazine of his own, in which he could write as he pleased, came true. Its realization seemed to inspire him with new energy. How many heads, how many right hands had the man—his readers asked each other—that he could turn out such a mass of work of such high order? His own and many other of the magazines of the day were filled with reviews and criticisms that made him the terror of other writers, and with stories and poems that made him the marvel of readers everywhere.
His works were translated into the tongues of France, Germany and Spain, and his fame grew in all of those countries.
Yet the most that he could afford in the way of a home was up two flights of stairs—two rooms in the third story of a dingy old house in East Broadway. Mother Clemm and Virginia kept them bright and spotless and "Catalina" dosing on the hearth gave a final touch of comfort, and they were far above the noise and dust of the streets, with windows opening upon a goodly view of the sky. They had a front and a back room, so that the beauties of the dawn and the noontide—of sunset and moonrise—were all theirs.
And the Wolf came not near the door, and the three whose natures were like to the natures of the oak, the vine and the heartsease, and who lived for each other only, dreamed again the dream of the wonderful valley—the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.