CHAPTER XXI.
Midsummer found Edgar Poe in Richmond and regularly at work upon his new duties in the office of The Southern Literary Messenger. He felt that if he had not actually reached the end of the rainbow, it was at least in sight and it rested upon the place of all others most gratifying to him—the dear city of his boyhood whose esteem he so ardently desired. Most soothing to his pride, he found it, after his several ignominious retreats, to return in triumph, a successful author, called to a place of acknowledged distinction, for all its meagre income.
The playmates of his youth—now substantial citizens of the little capital—called promptly upon him at his boarding-house. They were glad to have him back and they showed it; glad of his success and glad and proud to find their early faith in his powers justified, their early astuteness proven.
All Richmond, indeed, received him with open arms and if there were some few persons who could not forget his wild-oats at the University and his seeming ingratitude to Mr. Allan, who they declared had been the kindest and most indulgent of fathers to him, and who did not invite him to their homes or accept invitations to parties given in his honor, they were the losers—he had friends and to spare.
Yet he was not happy. The ivy had been torn from the oak and there was no sweet heartsease blossom to make glad his road—to made daily—hourly—offerings to him and him alone of the beauty, physical and spiritual, that his soul worshipped—of beauty and of unquestioning love and sympathy and approbation. In other words, The Dreamer was sick, miserably sick, with the disease of longing; longing for the modest home and the invigorating presence of the Mother; longing that was exquisite pain for the sight, the sound, the touch, the daily companionship of the child who without losing one whit of the purity, the innocence, the charm of childhood, had so suddenly, so sweetly become a woman—a woman embodying all of his dreams—a woman who lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by him.
Life, no matter what else it might give, life without the soft glance of her eye, the sweet sound of her voice, the pure touch of her hand within his hand, her lips upon his lips, was become an empty, aching void.
After two years of the sheltered fireside in Baltimore whose seclusion had made the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass possible, the boarding-house with its hideous clatter, its gossip and its commonplaceness was the merest make-shift of a home. It was stifling. How was a dreamer to breathe in a boarding-house? He was even homesick for the purr and the comfortable airs of the old white cat!
Whenever he could he turned his back upon the boarding-house and tried to forget it, but the clatter and the gossip seemed to follow him, their din lingering in his ears as he paced the streets in a fever of disgust and longing. For the first time since Edgar Poe had opened his eyes upon the tasteful homelikeness of the widow Clemm's chamber and the tender, dark eyes of Virginia searching his face with soft wonder, the old restlessness and dissatisfaction with life and the whole scheme of things were upon him—the blue devils which he believed had been exorcised forever had him in their clutches. Whither should he fly from their harrassments? By what road should he escape?
At the answer—the only answer vouchsafed him—he stood aghast.