Page:Edgar Allan Poe - a centenary tribute.pdf/116

 The great amount of work published through 1844 evidences Poe's unrelaxed efforts after leaving Graham, but poor pay, the uncertainty of daily bread, delays and disappointments in deferred publication, the over-speeding of his sensitive brain, the alternations of hope and dispair in the exceeding and prolonged illness of Virginia, brought bitter suffering to the three. The shadows hung heavily, close and dark about the little home in Spring Garden. It was decided to return to New York— the wider field. Virginia temporarily revived and Poe took her with him there. His letter to Mrs. Clemm written immediately after their arrival shows in every word the tender affection, trust and confidence uniting these three poor strugglers with fate.

A very few days after Poe reached New York his "Balloon Hoax" appeared in the New York Sun, and like others of his stories was taken as a fact in the United States, England and France. Stories, reviews and criticisms followed in quick succession in Graham's, Godey's, The Columbian Magazine, The Evening Mirror, The Southern Literary Messenger, and The Democratic Review. A position on the staff of The Evening Mirror being offered by its editor, N. P. Willis, was accepted by Poe and filled with the same industry and devotion to the interests of his employers as had characterized all his previous engagements.

The association between Poe and Willis was always harmonious, of it Willis wrote, "In our harassing days of daily editorship Poe for a long time was our assistant . . . . we loved the man for the entireness of fidelity with which he served us. When he left us we