Identifier: charcoalsofnewol00smith (find matches)
Title: Charcoals of new and old New York;
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Smith, Francis Hopkinson, 1838-1915
Subjects:
Publisher: Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Page & company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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atever might be the reasonfor his writing nothing; and never, amid all her tears and recitals ofdistress, suffering one syllable to escape her lips that could convey adoubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of pride in his genius andgood intentions. How keen was the suffering she tried to relieve is best describedin Mrs. Goves words as quoted in Professor Woodberrys life of thepoet: I saw her (Poes wife) in her bed-chamber, she writes; every-thing here was so neat, so purely clean, so scant and poverty-stricken,that I saw the poor sufferer with such a heartache as the poor feel forthe poor. There was no clothing on the bed, which was only straw, but asnow white counterpane and sheets. The weather was cold, and thesick lady had the dreadful chills that accompany the hectic fever ofconsumption. She lay on the straw bed, wrapped in her husbandsgreat-coat, with a large tortoise-shell cat in her bosom. The wonderfulcat seemed conscious of her great usefulness. The coat and the cat 118
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EDGAR ALLAN POES HOUSE AT FORD HAM were the sufferers only means of warmth, except as her husband heldher hands, and her mother her feet. A short time ago I spent the afternoon transferring the sad homelylines of the cottage to my canvas. The sun shone full upon it and thecherry trees that Virginia loved were just bursting into bloom. Onlythe dead stump of the big one whose blossoms brushed her window isleft, but others were near by, and while I worked on, my pencil feel-ing its way around the doorway and window sashes through whichthey so often looked; the chimney that bore away the smoke of thesmall fire that warmed them; the old tired creaky porch which hadresponded so often to his tread, my mind went over all the man hadsuffered, and my soul rose in revolt against the injustice and ignoranceof those who had made it possible. And yet,— here is the pity of it,— the same conditions existto-day. Worse, really,— for in Poes time merit,— or what was consideredmerit,— found its

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