Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/23

Rh drove or drew him in every task. After a year in New York they move to Philadelphia where they remain from 1838 to 1844. The last move was back again to New York. Here in 1845, on the appearance of The Raven, Poe found himself famous. But Virginia's death in 1847 and his own desperate illness dashed whatever hopes he may have had of ultimate happiness in the little Fordham home and another move is planned, that to Richmond. But the end came midway on October 7, 1849. After the harrowing termination of his engagement to Sarah Helen Whitman, of Providence, he had paid a happy visit of renewal to Richmond and was soon engaged to Mrs. Sarah E. Shelton, the Miss Royster of his university days. He was on his way to New York to bring Mrs. Clemm back to Richmond to attend the wedding and to share, the joy of a settled home at last, when he was found unconscious at Ryan's Fourth Ward Polls in Baltimore and taken at once to the Washington Medical College. Early Sunday morning, wrote Doctor J. J. Moran, "A very decided change began to affect him. Having become enfeebled from exertion, he became quiet and seemed to rest for a short time; then gently moving his head, he said, 'Lord, help my poor soul,' and expired."

II

The story is pitiful enough if we end it, as men thought it was ended, on that October afternoon that saw Poe laid beside his grandfather at the corner of Fayette and Greene Streets. But to know Poe we must follow him not to his death but to his coronation