This tirade was doubtless excited partly by a scandal just now started by one of the literary set in question concerning Poe and a young married lady of Lowell. While delivering a lecture in that city he had been hospitably entertained at her home, where he spent several days, with the usual result of contracting a sentimental friendship with the charming hostess, whom he calls "Annie." During the latter part of his engagement to Mrs. Whitman his visits and attentions to this lady did not escape the notice of the "literary set," and a scandal was at once started by one of them, who drew the attention of "Annie's" husband to the matter. He accepted Poe's explanation and his proposal rather to give up the society of these friends than to be the cause of trouble to them, saying:
"I cannot and will not have it upon my conscience that I have interfered with the domestic happiness of the only being on earth whom I have loved at the same time with purity and with truth."
Certainly an extraordinary avowal to be made to the lady's husband; and we ask ourselves to how many women had he made a similar declaration?
We have seen that when Poe for the last time left Mrs. Whitman's he went direct to Fordham, where, said Mrs. Clemm, he raved about "Annie," and even sent to her, reminding her of the "holy promise which he had exacted from her in their hour of parting, that she would come to him on his bed of death," and now claiming the fulfilment of that promise. Whether or not she complied does not appear; but it is more than likely that the lines, "For Annie," were suggested by his fever-dreams of her presence, first written while still half-delirious, and subsequently slightly altered to their present form. This piece, with the lines, "To My Mother," after being declined by all the more prominent magazines, finally appeared in the cheap "Boston Weekly," and must have been a surprise to "Annie" and her husband.
But there was one woman of the "literary set" who showed that she at least was not deserving of the sweeping condemnation wherewith the irate poet had visited them. This was Mrs. Anna Estelle Lewis, a young poetess who, with her husband, was on friendly terms with Poe, and whose poems he had favorably noticed. Poe was still, mentally and physically, in a state which rendered him incapable of writing, and the condition at Fordham was deplorable. Suspecting this state of things, Mrs. Lewis and her husband invited Poe to visit them at their home in Brooklyn, and Mr. Lewis says that thenceforth they frequently had both himself and Mrs. Clemm to stay with them. It was this kindly couple that R. H. Stoddard so sharply satirizes in his "Reminiscences" of Poe, while accepting an evening's hospitality at their home after the poet's death. On this occasion he met with Mrs. Clemm, of whom he has given a pen picture of which we instinctively recognize the life-likeness. We can see the good lady seated serenely among the company in her "black bombazine and conventional widow's cap," lightly fingering her eye-glasses, as was her company habit, and with her strongly marked features wearing that "benevolent" smile which was characteristic of her most amiable moods. "She assured me," says Stoddard, "that she had often heard her Eddie speak of me—which I doubted—and that she believed she had also heard him speak of the stripling by my side—which was an impossibility.... She regretted that she had no more autographs to dispose of, but hinted that she could manufacture them, since she could exactly imitate her Eddie's handwriting; and this she told as though it had been to her credit."
Deeply chagrined at the ending of his affair with Mrs. Whitman, and consequent disappointment in regard to the Stylus, Poe now, encouraged by his mother-in-law, again turned his thoughts to Mrs. Shelton.
It was in July that he and Mrs. Clemm left Fordham, he to proceed to Richmond, and she, having let their rooms until his return, to stay with the Lewises. Mr. Lewis says that it was at his front door that Poe took an affectionate leave of them all; Mrs. Clemm, ever watchful and careful against possible temptation or pitfalls by the way, accompanying him to the boat to see him off. In parting from her he spoke cheeringly and affectionately. "God bless you, my own darling Muddie. Do not fear for Eddie. See how good I will be while away; and I will come back to love and comfort you."[8]
And so, smiling and hopeful, the devoted mother stood upon the pier and watched to the last the receding form which she was never again to behold.